82 Transactions of the 



The President introduced Mr Wm. Lant Carpenter, B.A., B. Sc, 

 F.C.S., to the meeting, who at once began to deliver a lecture ou 



LIFE IN THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN. 



The spealcer commenced by referring to a short address on 

 ' Deep-Sea Dredging ' which he had delivered on the opening- 

 soiree of the Society's Museum and Library in June 1871, on 

 Avhich occasion a wish had been expressed that he would develop 

 the subject at greater length. 



Eeveiting to the subject of the evening, the popular title of 

 which had been selected by the Society, he stated that the earliest 

 instance in which living animals were brought up from great 

 depths in the ocean was in the Arctic Expedition under Sir John 

 Eoss in 1818. Two or three other isolated instances were given, 

 and attention was called to the opinion of the late Prof. Edward 

 Forbes, which, though for a long time almost universally accepted, 

 was founded upon insufficient data, viz., that no animal life existed 

 at a greater depth than 300 fathoms (1800 feet). The facts 

 which were occasionally observed, and found to be inconsistent 

 with this theory, were attempted to be explained away, until the 

 observations made by Dr Wallich in the sounding voyage of the 

 Bull-dog in 1860, appeared to prove incontestably that animal 

 life of many varieties did exist in the abyssal depths of the North 

 Atlantic Ocean. In 1861, a telegraph cable in the Mediterranean 

 being taken up for repairs, there were found attached to it, in 

 portions submerged to a depth of 1500 fathoms, several living 

 Mollusca. In 1866 and 1867, Professor Sars, of Christiania, had 

 the opportunity, under the Norwegian Goveinmeat, of dredging 

 around that coast at various depths between 200 and 450 fathoms, 

 and 427 species were thus collected. Some of these were of the 

 iiighest scientific interest, being representatives of species and 

 genera {e.g., the Eliizocrinus) that were geologically extinct, 

 while others were quite new. When these remarkable results 

 were made known, ai^plication was made by the Eoyal Society to 

 Her Majesty's Government for aid in prosecuting similar researches, 

 which were beyond the reach of any private individual. This 

 was granted, and in the years 1868 to 1871 inclusive, a series of 

 researches were made in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, 

 under the general superintendence of Dr W. B. Carpenter, Pro- 

 fessor Wyville Thomson, and Mr J. Gwyn Jefireys, the speaker 

 having also been a member of two of tliese expeditions. 



The general mode of operations was tlien described with the aid 

 of diagrams. One of the most important was temperature sound- 

 ing, the temperature of the sea at various depths being ascertained 



