470 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



Both Gardiner and Agassiz agree that there is evidence of recent 

 elevation in the Maldives, and that conditions which are operating 

 at the present day are determining the shape of the atolls. Shifting 

 sandbars play a considerable role in determining the contours of the 

 atolls, some of them being mainly rings of sandbars inclosing a 

 lagoon, as in the Gilbert Islands. No elevated Tertiary limestones 

 were seen, but the modern coral reef is in places now above the sea. 

 In essential respects Gardiner and Agassiz are in accord, and both 

 decide that Darwin's theory is not applicable to the Maldives. They 

 differ, however, in the conception of a " perfect atoll," and in their 

 opinions of some of the causes which have led to the deepening of 

 the lagoons, but the discussion of these matters would be unprofitable 

 in this place. 



Dr. Henry B. Bigelow was an assistant upon this expedition and 

 wrote a rejDort upon the medusas. 



After his return from this expedition Alexander Agassiz was not 

 suffered to remain long at rest, for once again, for the third and last 

 time, he was given charge of the Albatross. The Albatross left San 

 Francisco on October 6, 1904, and steamed to Panama. Thence to the 

 Galapagos Islands, then to Aguja Point and Callao on the Peruvian 

 coast, and then to Easter Island, from which she returned to the 

 Galapagos, only to again venture out over the Pacific to Manga Reva, 

 then back to Acapulco, and home to San Diego, where she arrived in 

 March, 1905. Lieut. Commander L. M. Garrett, United States Navy, 

 was in command, and they crossed and recrossed the Humboldt cur- 

 rent four times, cruising more than 13,000 miles, making 160 deep-sea 

 soundings and 280 pelagic hauls. The expedition ranged over the 

 largest uninterrupted area of ocean in the world. Prof. C. A. 

 Kofoid collected the protozoa and Dr. Henry B. Bigelow the medusae, 

 while the coral reefs, oceanography, and echinoderms were studied by 

 Alexander Agassiz. 



Interesting photographs of the great stone images of Easter Island 

 were obtained, and it was found that Manga Reva is a barrier reef 

 island with an eroded volcanic center. 



A remarkable result of the expedition is the discovery that the cold 

 Humboldt current, which flows northward along the western coast of 

 South America from the Antarctic to the equator, is a gi'eat bearer of 

 pelagic life teeming with medusae, salpae, and all manner of floating 

 creatures, both on the surface and in its depths; but in the outer 

 Pacific beyond the western edge of this great current we find a vast 

 area almost barren of life. Also the bottom under the Humboldt 

 current is crowded with organisms, whereas there is a sparsely in- 

 habited submarine desert to the westward of the western edge of the 

 current. The effect of this current upon the distribution of pelagic 



