THE ORIGIN OF THE OLDEST FOSSILS, ETC. 473 



where by tubes and burrows, and when broken to pieces with a 

 hammer each mass of coral gave us specimens of nearly every 

 great group in the animal kingdom. Fishes, Crustacea, annelids, 

 mollusca, echinoderms, hydroids and sponges could be picked 

 out of the fragments and the abundance of life inside the solid 

 rock was most wonderful. 



The absence of pelagic life in the landlocked water of coral 

 islands is as impressive and noteworthy as the luxuriance of life 

 upon and near the bottom. 



On my first visit to the Bahama Islands I was sadly disap- 

 pointed by the absence of pelagic animals where all the condi- 

 tions seemed to be peculiarly favorable. 



The deep ocean is so near that, as one cruises through the 

 inner sounds past the openings between the islets which form the 

 outer barrier, the deep blue water of mid-ocean is seen to meet 

 the white sand of the beach, and soundings show that the outer 

 edge is a precipice as high as the side of Chimborazo and much 

 steeper. 



Nowhere else in the world is the pure water of the deep sea 

 found nearer land or more free from sediment, and on the days 

 when the weather was favorable tor outside collecting we found 

 siphonophores and pteropods, pelagic molluscs and Crustacea and 

 tunicates and all sorts of pelagic larvae in great abundance in the 

 open water just outside the inlets. 



Inside the barrier the water was always calm, and day after 

 day it was as smooth as the surface of an inland lake. When I 

 first entered one of these beautiful sounds, where the calm trans- 

 parent water stretches as far as the eye can reach, while new 

 beauties of islets and winding channels open before one as those 

 which are passed fade away on the horizon, I felt sure that I had 

 at last found a place where the pelagic fauna of mid-ocean could 

 be gathered at our door and studied on shore. The water 

 proved to be not only as pure as air but almost as empty. At 

 high water we sometimes captured a few pelagic animals near 

 the inlets, but we dragged our surface nets through the sounds 

 day after day only to find them as clean as if they had been 



