EQUIPMENT. 37 
opened, it was allowed to run on say from five to fifty fathoms 
on the wire rope, and on reaching the lower point it closed 
again. The cylinder was then brought up with great care and the 
contents examined. In a similar way it was sent to collect the 
pelagic forms between fifty and one hundred fathoms in depth, 
and finally those of the intermediate belt between one hundred 
and one hundred and fifty fathoms. As was anticipated, the 
cylinder contained in the first experiment — from five to fifty 
fathoms — about the same pelagie forms as were found on the 
surface at the locality where the cylinder was sent down. In 
the second experimept, — from fifty to one hundred fathoms, — 
the same forms were found again, though greatly diminished in 
number, and the water of the third trial was found to be entirely 
barren of animal life. This collecting-cylinder was tried once 
off the eastern extremity of George’s Bank, and a second time 
in the axis of the Gulf Stream, in localities where the surface 
fauna was very abundant, and could be followed with the eye 
down to a moderate depth. These experiments serve to prove 
that the pelagic fauna does not extend to considerable depths, 
and that there is at sea an immense intermediate belt in which 
no living animals are found, nothing but the dead bodies which 
are on their way to the bottom. The collecting-cylinder should 
also be modified so as to drag at intermediate depths horizon- 
tally. Whenever this is done, the question can be definitely 
settled.' 
The “ Blake” has now been on three dredging cruises, and 
has been employed every winter since 1874 in deep-sea sound- 
ings. During the first dredging season in the Gulf of Mexico 
in the winter of 1877-78, the “Blake” was commanded by 
Lieutenant-Commander C. D. Sigsbee. To his inventive genius 18 
due the efficient equipment of the “ Blake,” and his suggestions 
have greatly modified all the apparatus originally in use on the 
vessel. 
The officers spared neither pains nor work to accomplish the 
1 Tt is stated in “Nature” of August Pisani,” is invariably sent down with the 
4, 1884, that a tow-net which opens and thermometer-wire, and that it has worked 
closes automatically, invented by Captain successfully. 
Palumbo of the Italian corvette ** Vettor 
