166 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



of the English savant. As early as 1818, for example, 

 Sir John Ross, who was the first person to make satis- 

 factory soundings at considerable depths, had in Baffin's 

 Bay brought up samples of the bottom containing 

 worms from a depth of ten hundred and fifty fathoms, 

 and had found starfish entangled in his line from a 

 depth of eight hundred fathoms. In 1860, the Bulldog 

 had found starfish on its sounding-lines at a depth of 

 twelve hundred and sixty fathoms ; and in 1860 and 

 1861, in repairing old telegraph cables, living animals 

 were found growing on them at a depth of twelve 

 hundred and sixty fathoms and two thousand fathoms, 

 respectively. 



Furthermore, while naturalists were discussing the 

 absence of animal life on the floor of the ocean below 

 three hundred fathoms, deep-sea sharks were continu- 

 ally taken at a depth of five hundred fathoms by Portu- 

 guese fishermen, and the fact that, on both sides of the 

 Atlantic, fish, which could only subsist on animal life, 

 were caught in deep water, seemed to produce no im- 

 pression on most scientific men, while the extensive col- 

 lections of Torell, from depths of over one thousand 

 fathoms, appear to have been completely lost sight of. 



In 1867-69 the expeditions of the Corwin and the 

 Bibb under Pourtales who had followed to America in 

 the wake of the elder Agassiz, disclosed off the Florida 

 coast an abundance of life on the bed of the ocean 

 down to nearly eight hundred fathoms, thus clearly 

 showing: that the range of animal life was at all events 

 much deeper than the supporters of Forbes had sup- 

 posed. 



The work of Pourtales was followed by a series of 

 English expeditions in the Lightning, Porcupine, Val- 



