On Dredging off (lie South Coast of New England. 143 



action of surrounding waters long enough for a deposit of 

 calcite to be formed within the marginal vesicles before the 

 infiltration of silica occurred. 



Of the section of chert labelled C 41 I could make but 

 little ; it appeared to contain clastic granules of quartz. 



XIV. — Recent Dredging hy the United- States Fish Com- 

 mission off the South Coast of New England, with some 

 Notice of the Crustacea obtained. .By S. I. Smith. 

 The United-States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, under 

 the direction of the Commissioner, Professor Baird, with 

 headquarters at Newport, Rhode Island, has had increased 

 facilities for scientific work the past season, and has added 

 even more than in past years to the knowledge of our marine 

 fauna. The new steamer ' Fish Hawk,' of 480 tons, built for 

 the work of the Commission, and under the command of Lieut. 

 Tanner, U.S.N., is specially fitted for scientific work, and was 

 employed a large part of the season in trawling, dredging, and 

 in making temperature observations. The investigation of 

 the invertebrate fauna, as in previous years, was carried on by 

 a party under the general direction of Professor Verrill, of 

 Yale College. Large collections were made in the shallower 

 waters along the coast and also on the shores ; but the most 

 interesting results were obtained from a series of trawlings 

 and dredgings made in September and the first week in 

 October, on three trips 75 to 100 miles off the coast, in the 

 region known as the Block Island Soundings. A general 

 account of these trips is given by Prof. Verrill in the ' Ame- 

 rican Journal of Science ' for November (vol. xx. pp. 390- 

 403), and need not be repeated here, further than that the 

 region examined is in north lat. 39° 46' to 40° 06', west long. 

 70° 22' to 71° 10', that on each trip the dredging and trawling 

 occupied less than a day's time, and that twenty-two hauls of 

 the dredge and trawl were made from depths varying from 

 64 to about 500 fathoms. Wire rope was very advantageously 

 employed in all the dredging and trawling. At one station, 

 86 fathoms, the bottom was covered with shells and sponges ; 

 but at all the other stations it was composed of fine sand and 

 mud. 



The collections have not been fully examined ; and this is 

 specially true of the collections from the deepest water which 

 were made on the last trip. But the wonderful richness of 

 the fauna in moUusks and echinoderms has been shown by 

 Professor Verrill in the paper already referred to ; and it is 



11* 



