HOLOTHURIA; TREPANG. GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 465 



was informed that sixty proas, carrying one thousand men, had 

 left Macassar two months before on an expedition to that coast, 

 the object of which was the collection of trepangs for the Chinese 

 market. The trepang, leche de mer, or sea-cucumber, is no 

 other than a Holothuria^ which is extremely abundant on that 

 coast ; in shallow water, the animal may be taken up by the 

 hand; in deeper water it is obtained either by diving or 

 spearing. In order to preserve the edible portion of it, the 

 body is split down one side, boiled, and pressed with a weight of 

 stones, then dried in the sun and stowed away in bags. About 

 a thousand of them make a,picol } which is equivalent to 1331bs. ; 

 and 100 picols are a cargo for a proa. It is carried to Timor 

 and sold to the Chinese, who meet them there ; and when all 

 the proas are assembled, the fleet returns to Macassar. It 

 would seem that European traders have now become alive to 

 the value of this traffic ; for there are regular establishments in 

 different parts of the Dangerous Archipelago, for those who go 

 leche-de-mer-ing, as the employment is commonly termed. After 

 exhausting the supplies furnished by one island, they pass on to 

 another, and usually complete their cargo within a few weeks. 

 The quantity annually sent to China from Macassar, which is 

 the principal market of the trepang, is usually about 7000 picols, 

 or 416 tons ; the price usually varying from 8 dollars a picol to 

 115, according to the quality. There is also a considerable 

 export of trepang from Manilla to Canton. The Sipunculus, 

 also, is used as an article of food in China and Japan. 



1024. The Geological position of the different families of 

 Echinodermata presents us with many points of great interest. 

 No remains of any of them can be traced in the very oldest 

 fossiliferous rocks ; but, judging by the abundance of the skele- 

 tons of Crino'idea in the limestones of the Transition series, the 

 animals of that group must have been among the most numerous 

 of the larger inhabitants of the ocean, at the time these strata 

 were deposited. So abundant are they, indeed, that they may 

 be almost said to constitute those thick and extensive beds of 

 Transition limestone, which, from the wheel-like form of the 

 separate joints of the Encrinite stems, is termed Entrochal 



