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FOURTEEN NEW SPECIES OF FORAMINIFERA 



By JOSEPH A. CUSHMAN 



Cushman Laboratory for Foraminiferal Research, Sharon, Mass. 



(With Three Plates) 



American workers on the foraminifera have long desired to have 

 material from that area dredged by the Challenger and represented by 

 the two famous Challenger stations 23 and 24. In the volume, " Sum- 

 mary of Results ", Brady lists 155 separate species and varieties from 

 station 23, and 241 from station 24. This alone would indicate the 

 extreme richness of this area as far as the foraminifera are concerned. 

 These stations are also important as being the type localities for 

 numerous species described by Brady. Although the Albatross did 

 some dredging in this general area, the exact stations were not oc- 

 cupied. The area on the north coast of Puerto Rico, as is known to 

 those of us who have sailed over it, is one of rough seas, and it is 

 difficult for an ordinary ship to do deep-sea dredging. When the 

 CJiallenger herself made these two stations, one of the men was lost 

 during the operations. 



It has been left to the Johnson-Smithsonian Deep-Sea Expedition 

 to reexplore this area. The large size of the vessel used, the Caroline, 

 practically 280 feet in length, with a draft of 17^ feet, a beam of 

 38 feet, and equipped with a 50-ton Sperry gyrostabilizer, which 

 keeps her on an almost even keel in all kinds of weather, made it 

 possible to work off this rough area to the north of Puerto Rico. The 

 stations occupied, particularly numbers 36, 91, 93, 94, and 95, cover 

 the region of the two Challenger stations, and a preliminary study of 

 the material has shown that most, if not all, of the species described 

 and listed by Brady from this area are present in the samples dredged 

 l)y the Caroline. 



The study of this material is therefore particularly important in 

 giving more material for these particular stations. The author has 

 been fortunate in having had placed at his disposal some small amounts 

 of the original Challenger material from these two famous stations, 

 but the amount has been insufficient to give the large series of speci- 

 mens which are desirable. So it is a matter of congratulation that this 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 91, No. 21 



