12 BULLETIN OF THE 
At our most distant points from shore, the bottom specimens invariably 
showed some trace of admixture of terrigenous material. A very fine 
mud was the characteristic bottom we brought up, often very sticky, and 
enough of it usually remained in the trawl, even when coming up from 
depths of over 2,000 fathoms, materially to interfere with the assorting of 
the specimens contained in our hauls. This mud continued all the way 
from the Galapagos to Acapulco, and up to the mouth of the Gulf of 
California, where it became still more of an impediment to dredging, so 
that little work was done until we passed the Tres Marias. Even then 
the trawl was ordinarily well filled with mud, and with it came up the 
usual supply of logs, branches, twigs, and decayed vegetable matter. 
On going farther north, into the Gulf of California, the nature of the 
bottom did not change materially from what it had been along the coast 
from Acapulco to Cape Corrientes ; it was the same viscid mud, mixed 
occasionally with Globigerin and masses of vegetable matter. So we 
found the trawling most difficult from the weight of the mud brought 
up, but occasionally a haul was made which more than repaid us for the 
time spent on the less productive ones. 
In the dredgings of. the “ Blake” in the Gulf of Mexico, off the West 
Indies, and in the Caribbean, my attention had already been called to 
the immense amount of vegetable matter dredged up from a depth of 
over 1,500 fathoms on the lee side of the West India Islands. But in 
none of the dredgings we made on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus did 
we come upon such masses of decomposed vegetable matter as we found 
on this expedition, There was hardly a haul taken which did not supply 
a large quantity of water-logged wood, and more or less fresh twigs, 
leaves, seeds, and fruits, in all possible stages of decomposition, 
TEMPERATURE SECTIONS IN THE PaNnamic DISTRICT. 
The temperature sections taken by the “ Albatross” during this cruise 
give us a fair sketch of the temperature of the currents running north 
parallel with the Mexican coast, of the counter current running towards 
the Gulf of Panama, of a branch of the Humboldt Current running from 
the coast of Peru and deflected by the Galapagos to the northward, the 
main branch of the current running south of the Galapagos and forming 
a great westerly current running nearly at right angles from the coast of 
Central America past the Galapagos, and becoming the Equatorial Cur- 
rent of the Pacific.! 
1 The Peruvian stream, the bulk of which flows westerly south of the Galapa- 
