42 THREE CRUISES OF THE "• BLAKE." 



Torell at depths of over 1,000 fathoms, during his first expe- 

 dition to Spitzbergen, were only noticed by Kef erstein ^ in 1846. 

 Similar observations by Sir James Clark Ross (1841) in the 

 Antarctic Ocean, at a depth of 400 fathoms, passed equally 

 without notice. 



Yet as early as 1863 Professor Loven - at the Meeting of 

 Scandinavian Naturalists held in Stockholm, gave a Report on 

 the expeditions of Torell to Greenland and Sj)itzbergen, in 1859 

 and 1861. These had demonstrated beyond doubt (with the 

 dredge) the existence at the deepest point reached (250 to 300 

 fathoms) of a fauna belonging to all the classes of marine in- 

 vertebrates. With the " Bulldog " machine Torell brought up 

 from the great depth of 1,000 and 1,400 fathoms foraminifera, 

 mollusca, annelids, Crustacea, echinoderms, and sponges. In 

 1868 Sars ^ published a long list of animals dredged to a depth 

 of 450 fathoms by his son G. 0. Sars, off the coast of Norway, 

 since 1862. These belonged to all groups of marine inverte- 

 brates and seemed to show without doubt, as was well put by 

 Loven, that off the Norwegian coast, at least, the zero point of 

 animal life had not yet been discovered ; he further threw out 

 hints in regard to the existence of a uniform abyssal fauna over 

 the bottom of the Oceans which have formed the basis of all 

 subsequent speculations on this subject. From that time the 

 Swedes and Norwegians have been most zealous in their explora- 

 tions of the physics and natural history of the Arctic regions. 

 They have sent expeditions to Iceland, to Spitzbergen, and 

 Greenland, with Smitt, Goes, Ljungman, and Malmgren as 

 zoologists, and although dredging had not then been developed 

 to its full extent, a few hauls were made by the " Bulldog " ma- 

 chine to a depth of 2,600 fathoms, which showed the existence 

 at those depths of a large number of invertebrates. Their last 

 expeditions were those of Nordenskiold and of the "Josephine" 

 (which ran a section across the Atlantic) with Captain Von Otter 

 as Commander. He had been the successful chief of the earUer 

 expedition of the " Sofia " to the Arctic region. 



^ Xachricht. d. K. Gesell. cl. Wiss. z. ^ In 1850 Sars gave a prelimiaary ac- 



Gottingen, 1846. count of a dredging trip to the Lofoten 



^ See also Rept. Brit. Ass. Adv. Sc. Islands in 1849. 

 York Meeting, 1844. 



