182 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



and I think that I now have the bulk of the groups which 

 you brought home and we shall find that in this region 

 at least the deep-sea things come into quite shallow 

 water, say 300 to 400 fathoms. But of course this will 

 all come out when collections are worked up. Although 

 we got a very much larger number of specimens than last 

 year, the bottom here is not so uniformly rich as in the 

 Gulf of Mexico, where we never made a cast without 

 bringing up a regular museum. Here we often trawled 

 for days, getting little, but when we struck a good spot 

 it produced wonderfully. 



I have quite a number of stems of Rhizocrinus Raw- 

 soni, but only got ten heads complete. As for the other 

 Pentacrinus, I have now enough to feel satisfied that 

 there are two species and I shall be able to send you 

 both. What do you think of bringing up in one haul 

 124 of them ! I thought I should jump overboard when 

 the tangles came up loaded with them. This brings 

 me to ask you if you want any more for dissection ? 

 Ludwig, who wrote the paper on Rhizocrinus, wanted 

 also Pentacrinus just before I left, but as you had them 

 in hand I did not wish to send him any specimens for 

 work till I knew what you were about. Or why don't 

 you ask him to do a lot of this nice microscopic work 

 to help you in your Memoir, so as not to duplicate the 

 papers. Let me know your ideas. I am sorry to say I 

 got no Holopus, though I dredged for two days in all 

 places where I thought they might occur and brought 

 up tons of rocks and broken stones and corals but no 

 Holopus, and none anywhere in Barbados. I leave to- 

 morrow for St. Thomas and hope to be in New York 

 the 26th or 27th of this month, and I shall tackle the 

 Challenger Echini at once and not stop I hope till they 



