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 pelagic forms as were found on the 

 surface at the locality where the cylinder was sent down. In 

 the second experiment, — 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 is 

 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 



^ It 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 



