APPENDIX TO THE JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD 



OF REGENTS. 



PROFESSOE AGASSIZ'S NARRATIVE. 



'•' I was invited by Professor Peirce to take passage in tlie Ilassler, 

 while she was going" to the tield of her duty on the coast of California, as 

 surveying vessel, provided that my expenses were borne by other par- 

 ties so that the Coast Survey should not be i)ut to any additional outlay. 

 In consideration of this proposition, my friends in Boston liberally sub- 

 scribed $20,000 to enable me to make as thorough a series "of iavestiga- 

 tions of animal life and other physical objects as possible, and a little 

 more than this sum was expended. 



"We left Boston on the 4th of December, 1871. Our first observations 

 of much interest were upon the Gulf weed, with its well-marked varieties 

 distinguished by differences of stem and leaves. We made large col- 

 lections of the hydroid communities inhabiting the sargossum, and 

 also of the small fishes, Crustacea and other animals finding shelter 

 within its branches. I saw no reason to suppose that the sargossum 

 originates as afloating-i^lant. On the contrary, all the masses we found, 

 however large, bore marks of having been torn from some attachment. 

 I have already given an account of the nest of the chironectes built of 

 gulf weed, and picked up by us. 



"Our first port was Saint Thomas, where we anchored on the 15th 

 of December. Here we made very large collections both of marine and 

 land animals, fish, corals, sea-urchins, star-fishes, and ophiui*ans, Crus- 

 tacea, shells, lizards, snakes, toads, and frogs, insects and birds. We 

 shipped from Saint Thomas alone eleven barrels and boxes of speci- 

 mens. Barbadoes was our next collecting-ground. There we made our 

 first cast of the dredge and with remarkable success. The collections 

 forwarded from this i^ort were not so large, but were perhaps more in- 

 teresting than those of Saint Thomas. The fauna upon the shoals off 

 the Island of Barbadoes strangely resembles that of a past geological 

 time. The comatulpe, pedunculated crinoids, pleurotoinaria^,, sipho- 

 nine, and cnemidia found upon these shoals recall forms which belonged 

 especially to the Mezozoic ages. This dredging was ailso rich in corals, 

 sea-urchins, starfish, and ophiurans, and in a great variety of beautiful 

 and rare shells. In some notes handed to meby Count Pourtales, hesaysof 

 this same dredging, December 29th and 30th off Barbadoes, about six miles 

 north of Bridgetown, numerous casts of the dredge were taken in depths 

 varying from 17 to 120 fathoms with very rich returns in mollusca, crusta- 



