276 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. [CHAP. VI. 
of the Natural History Museum of Lisbon, greatly 
surprised the zoological world by a notice of the 
occurrence on the coast of Portugal of whisps of 
silicious spicules resembling those of the Hya- 
lonema of Japan.' They were brought up by the 
Setubal shark-fishers, who, it seemed—an equally sin- 
gular circumstance—plied their vocation at a depth 
of 500 fathoms. Professor Perceval Wright, anxious 
to ascertain the full history of the case and to 
get Hyalonema in a fresh state, went to Lisbon 
in the autumn of 1868, and with the assistance of 
Professor du Bocage and some of his friends procured 
at Setubal an open boat and a crew of eight men, 
with “600 fathoms of rope, the dredge, lots of hooks 
and bait, and provisions for a couple of days. Leav- 
ing the port of Setubal a little before five o’clock in 
the evening, we, after a fair night’s sailing, reached 
what the fishermen signed to me to be the edge of 
the deep-sea valley, where they were in the habit 
of fishing for sharks, and there, while thus engaged, 
they had found the Hyalonema. It was now about 
five o’clock in the morning ; and the men, having had 
their breakfast, put the boat up to the wind, and let 
down the dredge; before it reached the bottom, about 
480 fathoms of rope were run out, some thirty more 
were allowed for slack, and then we gently drew it— 
by hoisting a small foresail—for the distance of about 
a mile along the bottom. It required the united 
efforts of six men, hauling the line hand over hand, 
with the assistance of a double pulley-block, to pull 
in the dredge: the time thus occupied was just an 
1 Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for the Year 
1864, p. 265. 
