424 Dr. E. P. Wright on Deep-sea Dredging. 
nothing—a zone commencing at 300-fathoms mark down to a 
depth at present quite unknown—a zone im which we now find 
a very peculiar fauna—one into which some of the fourth-zone 
animals may wander, but which is still wonderfully well cha- 
racterized by its own corals and echinoderms, its vitreous 
sponges, and even its own peculiar fishes. Up to the present 
I know of no published account of dredging in this zone, ex- 
cept the very interesting paper of Mr. L. F. de Pourtales, As- 
sistant to the United States Coast Survey (for a copy of which 
I am indebted to the author). The field selected for the re- 
searches of Capt. Platt, of the Coast-Survey steamer ‘ Corwin,’ 
was in a section between Key West and Havana, and the 
casts of the dredge were made at depths of 270 and 350 
fathoms. At these depths many species of Echinoderms, Cce- 
lenterates, and Sponges were met with; and, most interest- 
ing fact of all, not only were the long spicules of Hyalonema 
dredged up, but there was also found a fragment of the sili- 
ceous skeleton of a sponge, forming a regular network, some- 
what like that of Huplectella, but lacking the spines. Mr. 
Pourtales alludes also to a number of sponges (at least a dozen 
species) which are not yet determined, and says that some of 
the detached spicules are remarkable for their great size, one 
of the slender rectangulated sexradiate type of Bowerbank 
[and doubtless belonging to a sponge of Wyville Thomson’s 
order Vitrea] was found measuring more than half an inch. 
We may hope for more information when Professor Wyville 
Thomson and Dr. Carpenter publish an account of their expe- 
dition to the deep-sea valleys off the west coast of Scotland, 
and when the results of the fourth Swedish expedition shall be 
known. In the meanwhile I venture to give the following 
brief notes of a deep-sea dredging-expedition off the Portuguese 
coast near Setubal. 
I had been asked by the Council of the Royal Irish Aca- 
demy to draw up a report on the present state of our know- 
ledge of that strange organism Hyalonema mirabile of Gray, 
and was naturally anxious to procure living or well preserved 
specimens of this species. 
Professor J. V. Barboza du Bocage, of Lisbon, kindly in- 
vited me to pay him a visit at the season for the shark-fishing 
(in September), promising to place all the specimens of the 
Hyalonema in the museum at Lisbon at my disposal, and to 
give me every assistance in his power to enable me to go out 
to the ground where the specimens of [Hyalonema lusitanicum, 
Bocage, had been found. Accordingly, after the meeting of 
the British Association * in August last, at Norwich, I pro- 
* A committee was appointed by the British Association, with the 
