90 MEMORANDA. 



7. These soundings contain no species of Foraminifera 

 belonging to the group of Agathistegues {Plicatilia, Ehr,), a 

 group which appears to be confined to shallow waters, and 

 which in the fossil state first appears in the tertiary, where it 

 abounds. 



8. These soundings agree with the deep soundings off the 

 coast of the United States, in the presence and predominance 

 of species of the genus Glohigerina, and in the presence of the 

 cosmopolite species of the Orhulina U7iiversa, D'Orb., but 

 they contain no traces of the Marginulina Bac/ieii, B., Textilaria 

 Atlaidica, B., and other species characteristic of the soundings 

 of the western Atlantic. 



9. Examined by chromatic polarized light, the foramini- 

 ferous shells in these soundings showed beautiful coloured 

 crosses in their cells, and the mud accompanying them also 

 became coloured, showing that it is not an amorphous che- 

 mical precipitate. It in fact can be traced, tlirough fragments 

 of various sizes, to the perfect shells of the Foraminiferae. 



10. In the vast amount of pelagic Foraminiferae, and in the 

 entire absence of sand, these soundings strikingly resemble 

 the chalk of England, as well as the calcareous marls of the 

 Upper Missouri, and this would seem to indicate that these 

 also were deep-sea deposits. The cretaceous deposits of 

 New Jersey pi'esent no resemblance to these soundings, and 

 are doubtless littoral, as stated by Prof. H. D. Rogers (Proc. 

 Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 1853, p. 297).* 



11. The examination of a sounding, 175 fathoms in depth, 

 made in latitude 42° 43' 30" N., longitude 50° 05' 45" W. 

 (near Bank of Newfoundland), by Lieut. Berry man, gave 

 results singularly different from those above stated. It proved 

 to be made up of quartzose sand, with a few particles of horn- 

 blende, and not a trace of any organic form could be detected 

 in it. This exceptional result is important, as it proves that 

 the distribution of the organic forms depends on something 

 else beside the depth of the water. 



12. Connecting the results above mentioned with those fur- 

 nished by the soundings made in the western portions of the 

 Atlantic, it appears that, with the one exception above men- 

 tioned, the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, as far as 

 examined, from the depth of about 60 fathoms, to that of more 

 than two miles (2,000 fathoms), is literally nothing but a mass 

 of miscroscopic shells. 



13. The examination of a large number of specimens of 

 ocean water taken at different depths by Lieut, Berryman, at 

 situations in close proximity to the places where the sound- 



* American Journal of Science and Arts. 



