CHAPTER II. 



THE CRUISE OF THE ' LIGHTNING.' 



Proposal to investigate the Conditions of the Bottom of the Sea. 

 Suggestions and Anticipations. Correspondence between the 

 Council of the Royal Society and the Admiralty. Departure 

 from Stornoway. The Fee roe Islands. Singular Temperature 

 Results in the Fseroe Channel. Life abundant at all Depths. 

 Brisinga coronata. Holtenia carpenteri. General Results of the 

 Expedition. 



Appendix A. Particulars of Depth, Temperature, and Position at 

 the various Dredging Stations of H.M.S. ' Lightning,' in the 

 Summer of 1868; the Temperatures corrected for Pressure. 



%* The bracketed numbers to the woodcuts in this chapter refer to the dredging 

 stations on Plate I. 



IN the spring of the year 1868, my friend Dr. W. 



B. Carpenter, at that time one of the Yiee-Presidents 



}f the Royal Society, was with me in Ireland, where 



we were working out together the structure and 



levelopment of the Crinoids. I had long previously 



lad a profound conviction that the land of promise 



? or the naturalist, the only remaining region where 



;here were endless novelties of extraordinary interest 



'eady to the hand which had the means of gathering 



hem, was the bottom of the deep sea. I had even 



lad a glimpse of some of these treasures, for I had 



een the year before, with Professor Sars, the forms 



E 



