180 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



blown out to sea by the prevailing easterly trade winds. 

 The ship frequently encountered masses of vegetation 

 more or less waterlogged and ready to sink. Agassiz 

 imagines how such a deposit might puzzle some future 

 palaeontologist who should discover the fossil remains 

 of Crustacea, Annelids, fishes, Echinoderms, sponges, 

 etc., mixed with mango and orange leaves, branches of 

 bamboo, nutmegs, and land shells. He would naturally 

 explain such a condition as representing a shallow estu- 

 ary surrounded by forests, and yet the deposit might 

 have been made in fifteen hundred fathoms. 



While examining the contents of a trawl under a 

 scorching sun, the well-known fact was brought home 

 to Agassiz that the water of the ocean grows colder as 

 one descends, till at great depths, even in the tropics, it 

 approaches the freezing point. For the bottom ooze is 

 intensely cold, and it was a strange sensation, when as- 

 sorting the catch, while his back was broiling to have 

 his hands nearly frozen from handling the stiff, cold 

 mud. 



One hot muggy day it occurred to the thirst}^ voy- 

 agers on the Blake that the cold silent deep might make 

 an excellent refrigerator. Proceeding to apply the re- 

 sults of pure science to practical purposes, they care- 

 fully fastened a bottle of champagne to the rope close 

 to the trawl, and sent it down to a depth of twenty-four 

 hundred fathoms. But alas, the result was only encour- 

 afringf to the friends of total abstinence. It came back 

 cold, it is true, but filled with muddy salt water, which 

 had been forced through the foil and cork, and had re- 

 placed the more palatable contents of the bottle. 



Of the results of this season's dredging, Agassiz says 

 iu a letter to Mr. Patterson : — 



