CHAPTER II. 



THE CRUISE OF THE ' LIGHTNING.' 



Proposal to investigate the Conditions of the Bottom of the Sea. — 

 Suggestions and Anticipations. ■ — Correspondence between the 

 Council of the Royal Society and the Admiralty. — Departure 

 from Stornoway.— The Faroe Islands. — Singular Temperature 

 Results in the Faroe Channel. — Life abundant at all Depths. — 

 Brisinga coronata. — Holtenia carpentert. — General Results of the 

 Expedition. 



Appendix A. — Particulars of Depth, Temperature, and Position at 

 the various Dredging Stations of H.M.S. ' Lightning,' in the 

 Summer of 18G8; the Temperatures corrected for Pressure. 



\* TJie bracketed numbers to the woodcuts in this chapter refer to the dredging 

 stations on Plate I. 



In the spring of the year 1868, my friend Dr. W. 

 B. Carpenter, at that time one of the Vice-Presidents 

 of the Royal Society, was with me in Ireland, where 

 Ave were working out together the structure and 

 development of the Crinoids. I had long previously 

 had a profound conviction that the land of promise 

 for the naturalist, the only remaining region where 

 there were endless novelties of extraordinary interest 

 ready to the hand which had the means of gathering 

 them, was the bottom of the deep sea. I had even 

 had a glimpse of some of these treasures, for I had 

 seen the year before, with Professor Sars, the forms 



E 



