574 Dr. Michael Grabham [May 5 r 



empty or nearly so, and the walls are tough and contracted, as though 

 in the placid depths and conditions of less active life and movement 

 the fish relied on the absorption of much nourishment from the 

 substantial supply which may be held in solution. 



The fish, Aphanopus carbo, before me, with its formidable denti- 

 tion, is one of the Trichinuridae, or as occasionally seen on our 

 southern British coast, the Scabbard fish. The creature has a wide 

 range, and is known as the Frost fish of New Zealand. In Madeira, 

 though from its anatomy a true deep-sea fish, the Lepidopus is taken 

 at all — except in the very deepest recesses— depths in surprising 

 numbers, ranging freely among the inexhaustible invertebrate popula- 

 tion of the intermediate waters, where at 1000 feet below the surface 

 the Portuguese fishermen sink large basket traps, and bring up a 

 perennial take of the Pandalus prawn I here show you, with an 

 accompaniment of Amphimonidae in vast numbers. The depth of 

 1000 feet is quite sufficient to produce the destructive expansion 

 suffered by the fish of the deeper sea, for no single prawn or creature 

 long survives its sudden transference to the surface. You will 

 observe the enormous development of the sensitive prawn antennae 

 and their deep red protective colouring. 



The condition of the ocean floor itself is not less mysterious than 

 the life-history and food of its occupants, and from time to time vast 

 commotions occur of which at the surface we have little evidence. 

 One of these came to my mind in the following manner. I was 

 engaged at the time in observing the strength and variations of those 

 so-called earth currents which inductively traverse our deep sea cables 

 and are never entirely absent. My hope was to establish a definite 

 relation between these submarine indications and the earth tremors 

 which are registered by seismological methods, and thus to render it 

 possible not merely to record something which has already happened, 

 but to predict a coming commotion by reference to augmented 

 activity in the cable inductive movements. While these observations 

 were in progress we were startled by an agitation which lasted with 

 increasing intensity for four days and then suddenly ceased altogether. 

 The cable placed at my disposal had broken, a great landslide had 

 taken place on one of the Dezerta rocks eastward of Madeira, and we 

 were bewildered to determine whether the landslide had broken the 

 cable or an earthquake had been the cause of both. My fellow- 

 worker agreed with me that our exaggerated earth-currents had been 

 premonitory, and that the floor of the ocean in the path of the cable 

 had been broken up volcanically, but it was only when the repairing 

 cable ship arrived, and took soundings, that our deductions were 

 verified. It was then found that many miles of the submarine cable 

 had disappeared and were lost, and that the ocean floor had been so 

 broken up into mounds of jagged rock that it was necessary to depart 

 15 miles away from the direct course before an undisturbed bed 

 could be found for the reception of the new line. We should have 



