572 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
Academy gave, from the income of the Humboldt fund, 24,600 marks, 
and by further contributions the entire sum at the disposal of the ex- 
pedition was raised to 105,600 marks—a sum never before made avail- 
able in Germany for a biological expedition. The new steamer Na- 
tional, of Kiel, was chartered for three months, and-was fitted out “with 
all the admirable contrivances for obtaining plankton, for deep-sea 
fishing, and for sounding.” Besides the leader of the expedition, Prof. 
Hensen, five other naturalists participated: the zoologists Brandt and 
Dahl; the botanist Schiitt; the bacteriologist Fischer; the geographer 
Kriimmel; and the marine artist Richard Eschke. The voyage of 
the National lasted 93 days (July 7 to November 15).. The course was 
westward through the north Atlantic (Gulf Stream, Sargasso Sea), 
then southward (Bermudas, Cape Verde, Ascension) to Brazil, and 
eastward back by the Azores. During this voyage 400 casts were 
made, 140 with the plankton nets, 260 with other nets. 
Our German navy has been but little used for Scientific, still less 
for biological, investigations; much iess than the navies of England, 
France, Italy, Austria, and the United States. The remarkable serv- 
ices which many distinguished German zo0logists have rendered in the 
last half century for the advancement of marine biology have been ecar- 
ried on almost entirely without government aid. The German govern- 
ment has hitherto had very little means available for this branch of 
science. Therefore, great was the satisfaction when, by the liberal en- 
dowment of the plankton expedition of Kiel, the first step was taken 
for the more extensive investigation, with better apparatus, of the biol- 
ogy of the ocean, and for emulation of the results which the English 
Challenger and the Italian Vettor Pisani had lately obtained in this 
region. ; 
Accounts have been published of the results of the plankton expedi- 
tion of Kiel, by Victor Hensen (22), Karl Brandt (23), E. du Bois Rey- 
mond (21),and Kriimmel. The essential details of these accounts have 
been repeatedly published in the German newspapers, to the general 
effect that the proposed goal was reached and the most important 
question of the plankton was happily solved. I very greatly regret 
that I can not agree with this favorable verdict. (1) The most impor- 
tant generalizations which the plankton expedition of Kiel obtained on 
the composition and distribution of the plankton in the ocean stand in 
sharp contradiction to all previous experience; one or the other is 
wrong. (2) It seems to me that Hensen has incautiously founded a 
number of far-reaching erroneous conclusions on very insufticient prem- 
ises. Finally, I am convinced that the whole method employed by 
Hensen for determining the plankton is utterly worthless, and that the 
general results obtained thereby are not only false, but also throw a 
very incorrect light on the most important problems of pelagic biology. 
/ 
Betore I establish this dissenting opinion let me give an account of my — 
own planktonic studies and their results. 
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