in the Twenty Years before 1895 53 



other calcareous growths, providing it with a rocky pipe or 

 tunnel for its bed, which is not always an advantage. When 

 a break occurs, even in very deep water, it is not seldom found 

 that, in spite of the most careful survey, the cable has been 

 laid over a patch of bare rocky ground which is there usually 

 found to be slightly shallower than the surrounding soft ground. 

 Then the existence of movement in the waters, even at the 

 bottom of deep oceans, is made manifest by the worn-through 

 ends of the broken cable ; each wire in its strand is sharpened 

 out into needle-points. 



The "Dacia's" cruise was fruitful, not only in the discovery 

 of shoals, but also in the determination of their nature. It 

 was in steering toward a slight shoaling in the soundings 

 on the Lisbon-Madeira line, similar to that which was found 

 to have indicated the Seine bank, that, when 50 miles short 

 of the position, bottom was unexpectedly struck in about 

 450 fathoms. 



In the detailed study of this bank, which was at once under- 

 taken, the dredging-apparatus improvised out of grappling- 

 gear, being very strong, succeeded in wrenching away masses 

 of the rocky substance of the bank and bringing them to the 

 tee. They consisted of luxuriant branches of a coral, 

 rmined by the late Professor Moseley as Lophohelia prolifcra, 

 the living ones rooted to and flourishing on dead branches 

 of the same species, which were beginning to get coated with 

 peroxide of manganese. No depth less than 400 fathoms 

 was found on the bank, and it increased gradually to about 

 500 f.ith-.m- near the edge, from which it plunged very steeply 

 to a depth of 900 to 1000 when the slope became 



more moderate. In sounding round it, the lead was dropped 

 in one place just on the edge of the precipitous slope. It stru< k 

 bottom in 550 fathoms, thru tumbled off, stopped again in 

 620 fathoms, tumbled off again, and finally brought up iu 

 800 fathoms, the ship being motionless, the sea calm, and 

 no wind. It is probabl* th.t tin- sounding indicates the 

 genera] character of the escarpment of the upper 300 or 400 

 fit horns of the bank. It was important to observe this coral 

 growing luxuriantly in ! -p w.itrr of temperature under 



