128 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION. 
for the same purpose sounded very frequently, using the snapper lead. In all we 
calculated that in our thirty hauls we covered about forty miles of the bottom with 
dredge and trawl and put down over 200 soundings. These should be sufficient to 
enable us to appreciate its character and life. 
In the first place we were struck with the peculiarly smooth and level surface of the 
Fig. 30. 
Typical reef Lithothamnia. 
Upper figure Goniolithon frutescens and lower figure Lithophyllum gardinert. (Both x 3.) 
bottom. We found below 25 fathoms no shoal-patches nor growing areas which 
could give rise to them. At similar depths, and indeed everywhere except in the 
immediate vicinity of surface-shoals, the trawls and dredges were never caught up nor 
torn in any way. Only five specimens of living colonial corals were obtained and 
Lithothamnia were never of any great importance, though otherwise the hauls were 
generally rich. In some places the bottom was hard sand, but its general covering was 
