xxii THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



fishes of the Polar Sea. The sea between Hammerfest and Varanger Fjord, that 

 extendinty towards Novaja Zemlja and Jan Mayen, and northwards to the north-western 

 extremity of Spitzbergen, were explored. The greatest depth reached by the trawl 

 was nearly 1400 fathoms. About thirty species were collected, of which those of the 

 o-enera Lycodes and Lijjciris, and the genus Rliodichthys are of particular interest. In 

 an elaborate Eeport by Robert CoUett these fishes are described in detail and well 

 figured.^ 



2. Thanks to the exertions of Professor A. Agassiz and Dr. Spencer Baird, the 

 Government of the United States j^rovided, at first by the loan of ships, and later 

 through the organisation of the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, for a s5'-ste- 

 matic exploration of the depths of the Western Atlantic. Omitting the earliest opera- 

 tions, in which no special attention was paid to deep-sea fishes, we have to mention, in* 

 the first place, the successful trips of the U.S. steamer " Blake," under the command of 

 Lieut. -Com. C. D. Sigsbee and Commander J. N. Bartlett, in the years 1878 to 1880, 

 to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The dredging and trawling apparatus 

 used by the Challenger was improved, and in order to ascertain the nature of 

 the fauna at any given depth intermediate between the surface and bottom. Com- 

 mander Sigsbee introduced an apparatus, which works in a vertical, instead of hori- 

 zontal, direction, and which admits animals only at a desired depth. Whatever 

 importance may be attached to the results obtained by it with regard to the distribution 

 of the lower animals, the fact that this apparatus failed to capture any fishes in mid- 

 water is evidence of but negative value. The investigation of the bottom revealed 

 areas devoid of and others rich in animal life, and the causes of such abundance or 

 poverty were approximately ascertained. The operations of the U.S. Fish Commission 

 had to be conducted chiefly with the direct object of developing the commercial 

 resources of the country, but as this object goes hand in hand with, and as its 

 attainment is in great measure dependent on, strictly scientific research, the work 

 of the Commission was carried on in both directions. From the year 1877 the 

 Commission was enabled, by the possession of a suitable steamer, the "Fish-Hawk," 

 to engage in deep-sea operations, chiefly in parts of the Atlantic north of the area 

 surveyed by the " Blake," but occasionally extending southwards into the West Indian 

 Sea, as, for instance, those of 1884 by the U.S. steamer "Albatross." These explora- 

 tions, which were systematically carried out with sound judgment and intimate 

 knowledge of the requirements for deep-sea operations, yielded adequate results ; no 

 other part of the ocean is now better known, with regard to its marine products, 

 than the Atlantic coasts of the United States and the deep water outside the littoral 

 zone. The contributions to the fauna of deep-sea fishes were numerous and of 

 great interest, and have been described chiefly by Messrs. Brown Goode and 



1 Deu NorsL-e Nordhavs-Expedition, Zoologie. Fiske. Christiania, 1880, 4°. 



