140 Naturai. History Bulletin. 



sickness had a great deal to do with making our Pourtales 

 Plateau work seem pleasanter, and the health of the party 

 had been improved b}' our stay at the Tortugas. Practice 

 also increased the efficiency of each one in that particular 

 work which fell to his or her share, so that the material was 

 more quickly cared for and more intelligently disposed of. A 

 certain familiarity with the different groups of animals began 

 to make itself evident on the part of the students, showing 

 that the educational value of the expedition was assuming the 

 proportions hoped for by its projectors. Not only was each 

 person able to recognize at a glance the animals falling within 

 his particular province, but every one was able, in a general 

 way, to sort out the material into the proper classes as it w^as 

 dumped from the dredge or picked from the tangles. The 

 educational value of the mere handling and assorting of a mis- 

 cellaneous heap of material is perhaps greater than can be 

 realized in the same time in any other way, and when the 

 work is done where there is ready resort to the general liter- 

 ature of the subject, and also to the microscope and labora- 

 tory tools, it will be seen that our young people were enjoy- 

 ing unsurpassed educational facilities along biological lines, 

 although there was comparatively little of the time when they 

 were consciously studying. 



We soon found that there was little use in dredging inside 

 of about the sixty-fathom line, the slope from the reefs to that 

 depth being singularly rocky and barren of animal life, 

 although fairly good spots were occasionalh' encountered at 

 less depths. The first hauls we made after crossing the one- 

 hundred-fathom line directly south of Sand Key Light were a 

 revelation, at once demonstrating the exceeding richness of the 

 fauna and the vast difference between it and the reef fauna, and 

 the difference between both of these and the fauna of the 

 opposite slope of the Gulf Stream o(i the Cuban coast. No 

 more instructive lesson on the geographical and bath^'metric 

 distribution of marine life could well be found. But few^ 

 species, so far as }-et determined, were found common to 

 either two of these three fauna\ and the o-eneral facies of each 



