6 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



formed a solid basis for future work, and he would have anticipated several genera and 

 a large number of species which have since been described from Antarctic material. 



CHARACTERS OF THE MATERIAL RECEIVED 



Most of the deposits received by me were in their original containers which inci- 

 dentally throw some light on the financial stringency of the expedition, and the 

 ingenuity with which Bruce adapted his resources to his work. The containers were 

 principally bottles and jars in which provisions had been preserved, many still bearing 

 the original labels. Except from the two stations 313 and 417, the material consisted 

 only of cores from a sounding machine {} Sigsbee tube), and had originally been pre- 

 served in spirit. Their condition varied, some being in perfect preservation after thirty 

 years in store, while others, owing to defective corks, had dried up. In addition to a 

 sounding, each of the stations 313 and 417 also yielded a jar of washings from the trawl, 

 and from these the majority of the larger species have been recorded. 



Every container had a label in pencil inside and a similar label in ink on the outside. 

 The inner label was often so embedded in the material, especially when the sample was 

 dry, that it was only recoverable in fragments, while the outer label was generally more 

 or less obliterated by dirt and wear. From a combination of the two it was, however, 

 possible to identify everything with certainty by means of the Station Log (B. 1918, 

 SLS), even when only fragments of the labels were preserved. Very few of the labels 

 bore the station number, but only a low serial "deposit" number, ranging between 2 

 (St. 118) and 49 (St. 459). But for the fact that Pearcey quotes these "deposit" num- 

 bers as well as the station numbers, identification would have been less certain in some 

 cases, as for some unknown reason Bruce did not record these "deposit" numbers in 

 his Station Log. Presumably no bottom samples were preserved from the hundreds of 

 other stations, although the nature of the deposit is occasionally described in the log. 



No shallow-water material was received from within the Antarctic convergence. 

 With the exception of Sts. 406, 417 and 418, which are situated on the continental slope 

 of Coats Land in depths of 1131-1410 fathoms, all the soundings are from the abyssal 

 plain of the Scotia and Weddell Seas between 1775 and 2764 fathoms. Among the 

 samples are a few Globigerina and diatom oozes which call for no special mention. With 

 these exceptions the soundings are of a character previously unknown to me, and de- 

 scribed by Bruce in his Station Log as " Glacial Mud" and " Glacial Clay", the terms 

 being used without much apparent discrimination. Pirie, on the other hand, divides 

 these deposits into "Blue Mud" and "Blue Mud approximating to Red Clay". The 

 " Blue Mud " he regards as a terrigenous deposit extending from the Antarctic coast-line 

 to about 60° S, and in his chart he shows it as a uniform belt extending from Kemp 

 Land in 60° E to 90° W in the Bellingshausen Sea. The " Blue Mud approximating to 

 Red Clay" is shown on his chart as an elliptical area in the Biscoe and Weddell Seas to 

 the north of the Blue Mud belt, extending from about 40° E to nearly 40° W, and lying 

 between the Blue Mud and the circumpolar diatom ooze belt. The chart seems to be 

 more or less empirical, for the few stations from which material was obtained (Sts. 226, 



