44 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



' Wrinkled heads and aged, 

 With silver beard and hair,' 



a dozen of the best of them breaking off just at that critical 

 point where everything doubles its weight by being lifted out 

 of the water, and sinking slowly away back again to our 

 inexpressible anguish ; glossy wisps of Hyalonema spicules ; 

 a bushel of the pretty little mushroom-like Tisiphonia ; a 

 fiery constellation of the scarlet Astropecten tenuispinis ; 

 while a whole tangle was ensanguined by the ' disjecta 

 membra ' of a splendid Brisinga." ^ 



In the final chapters of the book he discusses such highly 

 important and controversial matters as Deep-sea Tempera- 

 tures, the Gulf Stream, and the Continuity of the Chalk, In 

 summarizing the results obtained in regard to the deep-sea 

 fauna, he says (p. 80) : — 



" Finally, it had been shown that a large proportion of 

 the forms living at great depths in the sea belong to species 

 hitherto unknown, and that thus a new field of boundless 

 extent and great interest is open to the naturalist. It had 

 been further shown that many of these deep-sea animals are 

 specifically identical with tertiary fossils hitherto believed to 

 be extinct, while others associate themselves with and 

 illustrate extinct groups of the fauna of more remote periods ; 

 as, for example, the vitreous sponges illustrate and unriddle 

 the ventriculites of the chalk." 



These pioneering expeditions — the results of which are 

 not even yet fully made known to the scientific world — were 

 epoch-making inasmuch as they not only opened up this new 

 world to the systematic marine biologist, but gave glimpses 

 of world-wide problems in connection with the physics, the 

 chemistry, and the biology of the sea which are only now 

 being adequately investigated by the modern oceanographer. 

 These results, which aroused intense interest amongst the 



^ For descriptions and figures of Holtenia and other new deep-sea 

 Hexactinellid Sponges, see his Memoir in the Phil. Trans. Royal 

 Soc. for 1869. 



