28 "TEP.li.V NOVA" EXPEDITION. 



specimens. One point only appears to us to be definitely proved by the com- 

 paratively low percentage of mineral grains, viz. : that the deposit was laid down 

 at a time, and under conditions, when the shore-line was at a far greater distance 

 from the Stations in question than it is to-day. 



(ii) LITERATURE. 



The multitudinous and world-wide material collected by d'Orbigny prior to 

 1826, the date of his " Tableau Methodique," included none from Antarctic 

 regions. Freycmet and Duperrey, from whom he received much material, did 

 not cruise S. of Tasmania. 



The literature of our subject may be said to commence with a paper 

 presented bv Ehrenberg to the Berlin Academy in 1844, dealing with material 

 collected by Dr. J. Hooker on the cruise of the " Erebus '" and " Terror," under 

 Sir James Ross.* A volume of 100 pp. was issued containmg instructions to 

 observers and collectors upon this voyage, the data and material collected to be 

 worked out at home after the return of the Expedition.! According to 

 Ehrenberg it was he who caused Humboldt to press for the collection of micro- 

 organisms and to prescribe the methods of collection. We are told that in 

 January 1841, lying becalmed, Ross put over a dredge which brought up rock 

 fragments and " a surprising profusion of animal life." Dr. J. Hooker collected 

 forty packets of soundings from Cape Horn to Victoria Land, and three jars of 

 water which were sent to Germany, and we read that forms collected in 1842 

 near Victoria Land were still almost fresh when they reached Germany in 1844- 

 Hooker and Ehrenberg both worked on the material, and the conclusions arrived 

 at by Ehrenberg were, shortly, that the relations of organic life were identical 

 at the North and South Poles, that the surface layers (" Pancake ice ") were 

 crowded with life, and that the supposition that organisms cannot live below 

 100 fms. had become imtenable.J 



At the time Ehrenberg ^vrote, only three packets, between 63° and 70° S. 

 (190-270 fms.) had been examined ; what became of the rest is not known to us. 

 On p. 188 he records, as foimd by Hooker, in floating (" Pancake ") ice, from 

 78° 10' S., 162° W., four Foraminifera ; of three of these he gives a nebulous 

 diagnosis on pp. 207-8, the other is simply recorded as " Spirolifidina.'"' The 

 three diagnosed forms are : (1) Granimostomum divergens, which he subsequently 



* C. G. Ehrenberg. '' Vorlaufige Nachricht iiber das kleinste Leben im Weltmeer, am Siidpol, und 

 iu der Meeres Tiefen," Monatsber. Berliner Ak. Wiss., 1844, pp. 182-207. 



t The reader is referred to Dr. H. R. Mill's work " The Siege of the South Pole " (London, 1905, 

 pp. 252-326.) The '' Erebus " and '• Terror " started from England Sept. 30, 1839, and were within the 

 Antarctic Circle (S. of 66° 30' S. lat.) between Jan. 1 and March 4, 1841, Jan. 1 and March 6, 1842, and 

 March 1 and March 11, 1843. They returned to England in September, 1843. 



J An abbre\'iated translation of Ehrenberg's pajjer was published in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist, xiv, 1844, 

 pp. 169-181, " On Microscopic Life in the Ocean at the South Pole and at Considerable Depths." 



