TWO FOi\\G NATURALISTS. 



95 



" A thread. In 1861 the submarine cable laid 

 between Sardinia and Algeria broke, at a depth of 

 more than 6,500 feet. It was fished up, and you may 

 imagine the astonishment of naturalists when there 

 was found adhering to this cable a whole colony of 

 polypes, of annelids, and of shells. Some of the 

 species thus discovered were unknown in the Mediter- 



STTBMARrXE EXPLOITATIONS OF THE " TALISJLA2J." JTMTNTMI CtUStralis. 



ranean waters, and others had been met with pre- 

 viously only in the state of fossils. So that this was 

 greeted as a happy revelation, and Milne-Edwards,* 

 feo whom the pieces of the cable had been confided, 

 went so far as to say that l such discoveries were well 



* Milne-Edwards, one of the chief of the naturalists of France, has 

 recently died, and the author of the original work has inserted a note 

 announcing 1 the fact, and expressing the respect and esteem in which he was 

 held, as well as the regret felt at his loss. 



