August 1 6, 1877] 



NATURE 



323 



SECTION D. 



BIOLOGY. 



Opening Address by the President, J. Gwyn Jeffreys, 

 LL.D., F.R.S., Treas. G, and L.SS. 



Being merely an amateur naturalist, and not having had any 

 strictly scientific education, I consider it a great honour to be 

 invited to preside over this important Section of the Association. 

 I cannot pretend to give such an address as may be expected 

 from the president ; but I will offer some remarks on a subject 

 in which I take considerable interest and have done some work, 

 viz., the deep-sea moUusca. 



The historical part of the subject has been fully treated by Dr. 

 G. C. WaUich in his "North-Atlantic Sea-bed," 1S62 ; by 

 Prof. Preshnch in his Presidential Address to the Geological 



Society of London in 1S71 ; and by Prof. Sir Wyville Thomson 

 in his " Depths of the Sea," 1S73. 



By the term " deep-sea " I do not mean the zone which the 

 late Prof. Edward Forbes called the eighth, and which he 

 supposed to be the lowest and the limit of habitability, in his 

 elaborate and excellent "Report on the .Egean Invertebrata," 

 published by the Association in 1S44. That zone comprised the 

 depths lying between 105 and 230 fathoms. Nor would I refer 

 to it the "deep-sea" zone which I defined in the Introduction to 

 my work on "British Conchology, " 1862 ; this applied to the 

 British seas only, and extended to the " line of soundings," being 

 about 100 fathoms. .Since that time the exploring expeditions in 

 H.M.SS. Lii;htmiig, Poniipine, Challenger, and Valorous, as 

 well as in the Norwegian frigate J'oriiigi'ii, have shown that 

 moUusca inhabit the greatest depths that liave been examined, 

 and that life is not less abundant and varied in the abysses of the 



