Miscellaneous. 359 



Belemnozijihius jjrorops. — Beak solid, with all traces of the original 

 separation of the constituent bones and the ossified mesethmoid 

 cartilage obliterated. — Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., May 9. 



Reply to some Observations by Mr. Owyn Jeffreys on the Cruise of 

 ' H.M.S. ' Valorous ' in 1875. By G. C. Wallich, M.D. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, — It is mentioned amongst the " British Association 

 Notes "' of the 'Athenaeum ' for September 16th that, in a paper read 

 at the Meeting by Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys on the results of the voyage 

 of H.M.S. ' Valorous ' to Disco in 1875, he described " the occur- 

 rence of large and small stones in his dredgings, and said that tele- 

 graphic cables had usually been constructed too much on the suppo- 

 sition that the sea-bottom was always soft ; consequently they are 

 very liable to damage when this is not the case." 



During the voyage of H.M.S. 'Bulldog 'in 1860 to the Faroe 

 Islands, Iceland, Greeuland, and Labrador, stones and gravel were 

 repeatedly brought up from very great depths. Moreover a living 

 Serpula, within its tube, which had evidently but then been broken 

 off from its point of attachment to a stone or rock, together with a 

 dead /S'^r/ntZa-shell still adherent to a granitic stone of considerable 

 size, were obtained, nearly midway between the Earoes and Iceland, 

 under conditions which would seem to indicate the presence of a 

 deep-seated current, or rather drift, of sufiicient power at all events to 

 prevent any material accumulation of muddy deposit in that locality. 



These several facts and their extreme importance in relation to 

 deep-sea telegraphy were on various occasions referred to by me 

 between the years 1860 and 1864, namely: — in my 'Notes on the 

 presence of Animal Life at great Depths in the Ocean,' 1 860, pp. 30, 

 31, & 37 ; in my ' North- Atlantic Sea-bed,' 1862, pp. 2-7 & 147 ; 

 in my paper read before the Royal Geograpbical Society in 1863* ; 

 in my " Outline of a Scheme for a systematic Survey of the Sea- 

 bed," laid before the Council of the Royal Geographical Society in 

 1863 (of which a reprint appeared in the 'Annals ' for July of the 

 present year, p. 80) ; and lastly, in a paper, " On the North- Atlantic 

 Sea-bed," in the ' Quarterly Journal of Science ' for January 1864. 



I will confine myself to giving the following extract from the 

 paper last referred to : — 



" There is one point to which I must invite attention, inasmuch 

 as its importance can hardly be overestimated ; and yet, strange to 

 say, it has heretofore been almost entirely overlooked. 



" In some of the deeper soundings both of the North and Mid- 

 Atlantic routesf, fragments of rock have been brought up. How 

 is the occurrence of these to be accounted for ? and what does it 



* On that occasion I exhibited an instrument, which I called a Pdi- 

 meter, designed by me for the purpose of readily detecting the occurrence 

 of rocky or stony bottom at any depth. 



t The occurrence in the Mid-Atlantic of a few " small stones " was 

 noted in the tabulated lists of soimdings taken by Commander Dayman, 

 R.N., in the Atlantic in 1867. 



