8 THE DEPTH AND MARINE DEPOSITS OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
formation to the patches discovered off the east coast of the United States 
by the earlier dredgings of the Coast Survey, of Pourtalés, and of the 
‘Blake.’ . 
“Nearly everywhere along our second line of exploration, except on the 
face of the Galapagos slope, we trawled upon a bottom either muddy or 
composed of Globigerina ooze, more or less contaminated with terrigenous 
deposits, and frequently covered with a great amount of decayed vegetable 
matter. We scarcely made a single haul of the trawl which did not bring 
up a considerable amount of decayed vegetable matter, and frequently logs, 
branches, twigs, seeds, leaves, fruits, much as during our first cruise. 
«J was struck, while trawling on our second line between the Galapagos 
and Acapulco, to observe the great distance from shore to which true terrig- 
enous deposits were carried. There was not a station there occupied of 
which the bottom could be characterized as strictly oceanic. 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 char- 
acteristic 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 con- 
tained 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 occa- 
sionally with Globigerine 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. 
“Tn 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 
