CHAP. III. ] TENERIFFE TO SOMBRERO. 169 
ynx shows six to seven folds, ending in a chitinous border. 
The mouth is a round aperture, beset with small cuticular pa- 
pill. The perisom is divided into four muscular bands, the 
surface layer showing a tissue of square meshes, in each of 
which there are four to five sense-bodies. For the reception 
of this singular species Dr. von Willemoes-Suhm proposed to 
establish the genus Lezoderma, which will represent a family in- 
termediate between the sipunculids and the priapulids: Phar- 
ynx attached to the body-wall by four retractors ; no tentacles, 
no proboscis, and no pharyngeal teeth; excretory opening in 
the anterior part of the body near the mouth. 
On the 18th we sounded at 9 a.m., lat. 25° 45’ N., long. 20° 12’ 
W.,160 miles S.W. of the island of Ferro, and 50 miles to the 
west of the station of the day before, in 1525 fathoms. The 
“ Hydra” tube brought up no bottom, and we sounded again 
with a depth of 1520 fathoms, and again no bottom. It thus 
seemed that we had got upon hard ground; and as the sounding 
of the following day gave 2220 at a distance of only 19 miles, 
we had evidently struck the top of a steep rise. The dredge 
was lowered at 10 a.m. with 2220 fathoms of line, and 2 ewt. 
leads 300 fathoms before the dredge. At 5.30 p.m. the dredge 
was hauled up, and contained a few small pieces of stone resem- 
bling the voleanic rocks of the Canary Islands, and some large 
bases of attachment and branches of the calcareous axis of an 
aleyonarian polyp allied to /s¢s. Some of the larger stumps 
were nearly an inch in diameter; the central portion very 
compact, and of a pure white color; the surface longitudinally 
grooved, and of a glossy black. The pieces of the base of the 
coral which had been torn off by the dredge were in one or two 
cases several inches across, and upward of an inch thick, form- 
ing a thick crust from which the branches of the coral sprung. 
The crust was black on the surface, showing a fine, regular 
granulation ; and a fracture through the crust was of a uniform 
dark-brown color and semi-crystalline. 
