68 HENRY B, BRADY. 
down to its greatest depths, for of that there can be no 
reasonable doubt; it does not even affect the greater number 
of types which are found in Globigerina-ooze, for of the forty 
or fifty species or more which Globigerina-mud often contains, 
those to which it refers may not exceed half a dozen, the re- 
mainder being recognised on all hands as living their whole 
life at the bottom. The point still in debate is, as already 
indicated, whether a certain limited number of forms live 
only at the surface, or also at various depths down to the 
floor of the ocean; and it derives its chief interest and 
importance from the fact that individuals of these few 
species occur in such enormous numbers that in many areas 
they constitute the mass of the calcareous deposit. The 
cruise of the “Knight Errant” during the past summer 
has in part removed one of the minor difficulties which were 
put forward as negative evidence, by furnishing us with 
surface gatherings of small non-spinous Globigerine from 
an area in which they had not previously been collected, 
and this is satisfactory as far as it goes: on the other hand, 
the comparison of the surface and bottom specimens, 
though not yet completed, appears to supply an argument 
in the opposite direction. I do not propose at the present 
moment to enter again upon the discussion of this subject, 
though I hepe to revert to it at a future time; my object 
is rather to offer a few notes upon the fauna of the sea- 
bottom over an area in which the porcellanous Foraminifera 
(Miliolide), which are known to be exclusively bottom- 
living species, not only furnish the most characteristic 
feature of the deposit, but form by far the most important 
and bulky constituent. 
Professor G. O. Sars, of Christiania, in his official report 
on the Norwegian Sea-fisheries for the year 1876, gives a 
short account of the biological conditions of the northern 
*‘deep-water cold area,” which occupies a considerable 
portion of the region between Norway, Bear Island, and 
Spitzbergen on one side, and the Fardée Islands, Iceland, and 
Greenland on the other. This region has a bottom tem- 
perature of from 0° to 16° Cent. (32° to 34:9° Fahr.), and 
the depth ranges from 300 to 2000 fathoms. The sea-bed, 
especially of the deeper portions of the area, consists of a 
soft, light-coloured, sticky mud, of nearly uniform composi- 
tion; that is to say, composed in very large proportion of 
one species of porcellanous Foraminifera, Biloculina rin- 
1 “ Indberetuinger til Departementet for det Indre fra Professor, Dr. G. 
O. Sars om de af ham i Aarene, 1864—-1878, anstillede Undersogelser 
angaaende Saltwandsfiskerierne.” Christiania, 1879. 
