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science the services of commanders of merchant vessels and 

 seamen generally, in collecting specimens of natural history 

 and information in natural science, whether in zoology, 

 ethnology, botany, or meteorology, for which they have such 

 facilities in all parts of the world, for the use of those scientific 

 institutions which may desire to join in it, and also with a 

 view to elevate the mercantile marine of England in the social 

 scale by stimulating a taste for such knowledge amongst sea- 

 lanng men. The consent and co-operation of shipowners will 

 of course be necessary, and Captain Anderson seeks the 

 additional influence of merchants and scientific bodies. The 

 subject met with the unanimous approval of the members 

 present; and it was resolved that the portion of Captain 

 Anderson's letter relating to it should be published at the 

 expense of the Section, for the purpose of eliciting opinions 

 upon the feasibility of the scheme and upon the best practical 

 method of carrying it into execution. 



Commander M. F. Maury, U.S. navy, forwarded copy of 

 a letter from Lieutenant John M. Brooke, the inventor of 

 the Detaching Deep Sea Sounding Apparatus, and enclosing 

 for the Section a number of soundings from the North Pacific 

 Ocean, which were obtained with small twine and spherical, 

 weights of about 701bs., which were detached upon contact, 

 and left at the bottom of the ocean ; Lieutenant Brooke 

 observes, that " Nine consecutive casts (soundings), varying 

 from 2,000 to 2,900 fathoms, were made with the same piece 

 of twine and detaching apparatus, w-hich last weighed less 

 than lib." As the specific gravity of a wet flax line 

 is nearly that of water, a line that can he pulled down 

 by a weight, may be pulled up by hand, provided the weight 

 he detached at the bottom. One of the specimens obtained 

 in 3,030 fathoms, nearly three and a half miles, is the greatest 

 depth from which material has yet been brought up from the 

 ocean bed. Lieutenant Brooke sent also a few specimens 

 obtained by soundings in shallow waters, on the east coast of 

 Niphon, Japan, by him during his boat voyage from Simoda 

 to Hallodadi in 1855, under the orders of Commander 

 Rodgers, U.S. navy. 



