Marine Zoology 291 



abysms of the sea, creatures whom we only know as geo- 

 logical, fossilized, bony specimens, might be found in the 

 flesh; but, with one or two exceptions and these of no 

 great importance these were not found. Neither did any 

 new type of organism appear. Nothing, in fact, was dredged 

 from the depths or found in the tow-net that did not fit 

 into the larger groups that already had been established 

 before the Challenger was thought of. On the other hand, 

 many new methods of research were developed during this 

 voyage, and with it will ever be associated the names of 

 Wyville Thompson, mentioned above, Moseley, John Murray 

 and others who, happily, are still with us. 



A few words should be said as to the part played by 

 cable-laying in the investigation of the subaqueous crust of 

 the earth. This part, though undoubtedly important, is 

 sometimes exaggerated; and we have seen how large an 

 array of facts has been accumulated by expeditions made 

 mainly in the interest of pure science. The laying of the 

 Atlantic cable was preceded, in 1856, by a careful survey 

 of a submerged plateau, extending from the British Isles 

 to Newfoundland, by Lieutenant Berryman of the Arctic. 

 He brought back samples of the bottom from thirty-four 

 stations between Valentia and St. John's. In the following 

 year Captain Pullen, of H.M.S. Cyclops, surveyed a parallel 

 line slightly to the north. His specimens were examined by 

 Huxley, and from them he derived the Bathybius, a primeval 

 slime which was thought to occur widely spread over the 

 sea-bottom and to be the most primitive form of living 

 matter. The interest in this " Urschleim " became merely 

 academic, when John Y. Buchanan, of the Challenger, showed 

 that it is only a gelatinous form of sulphate of lime, thrown 

 down from the sea-water by the alcohol used in preserving 

 the organisms found in the deep-sea deposits. It was 

 characteristic of Huxley to acknowledge his mistake and 

 never to mention the subject again. 



The important generalizations of Dr. Wallich, who was 

 on board H.M.S. Bulldog, which, in 1860, again traversed 

 the Atlantic to survey a route for the cable, largely helped 

 to elucidate the problems of the deep. Wallich noticed 

 that no algce lived below the 200 fathom line; he collected 



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