OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCHES—GRAVIER. 359 
commander, Capt. Thor Iversen. The aim was to get in touch with 
the fisheries in order to acquire a complete knowledge of the banks 
and grounds exploited for fishing and to see the fishers at work, 
together with their appliances and their methods. During these 
practical researches Capt. Thor Iversen discovered grounds abun- 
dantly stocked with fish which the fisheries had until then neglected. 
At certain places where they sought to get a general idea of the 
grounds, they found fishes in such quantity that they began at once 
to exploit industrially these unsuspected riches. When I stopped 
at Bergen, in 1908, there were in the famous fish markets of that city 
an immense quantity of halibuts, which came from a very rich bank 
accidentally discovered by the Michael Sars some time before. In 
these operations the primarily scientific ship was aided by fishing 
boats hired for the purpose, with competent zoologists aboard. It is 
due to the earnestness and intelligent energy of Hjort and the col- 
laborators whom he was fortunate enough to gather around him that 
success many a time crowned their efforts. These cceanographers 
succeeded in finding new forms of fishes and indicated methods of 
capturing them, thus aiding in the development of a new industry. 
VIl. 
Desirous of extending their researches into the Atlantic, whose 
relations with the Norwegian Sea they had studied, the Norwegians 
in 1910 undertook, thanks to the generous collaboration of Sir John 
Murray, the well known oceanographer of the Challenger expedition, 
a cruise in the northern part of that ocean, which proved extremely 
profitable as much from a biological point of view as from a physical. 
The observations of B. Helland-Hansen in the vicinity of the Azores 
show that the sun’s rays penetrate much deeper than had been 
believed until then, for at 1,000 meters from the surface photographic 
plates still received distinct impressions, and certain rays from the 
most refrangible part of the spectrum penetrate much deeper yet. 
By an ingenious contrivance which permitted of fishing simultan- 
eously at different depths, naturalists of the Michael Sars were first 
enabled to study the vertical distribution of a certain number of 
species of fishes and of crustacea, and to clear up a number of bio- 
logical questions. The general results of this expedition have been 
presented in a very comprehensive work written by the two chiefs, 
Sir John Murray and Hyort.' 
VEL 
In the United States, where Maury, Bache, Pillsbury, and others 
were among the first to scientifically study the sea, there has been a 
1 Sir John Murray and Johan Hjort, The Depths of the Ocean, with contributions from Prof. A. Appelldf, 
Prof. H. H. Gran, and Dr. B. Helland-Hansen. Macmillan & Co., London, 1912. 821 pp., 575 figs. in the 
text, 9 pls., of which 7 are colored. 
