362 E. M. KINDLE 



The extraordinary abundance of flagellate animalcules is re- 

 ported' to have caused red water for 200 miles along the coast of 

 California and produced by their decomposition the death of shoals 

 of fish and quantities of other marine animals. Phenomena of 

 this kind must cause the sudden deposition on the sea bottom 

 of unusual and extraordinary quantities of the remains of pelagic 

 life of various kinds. If great numbers of fishes or other verte- 

 brate animals were affected a bone bed might result. 



Displacement of ocean currents. — Still another cause of dis- 

 continuity in the accumulation of marine fossils over extensive 

 areas is to be found in the occasional shifting or displacement of 

 ocean currents from parts of their usual routes by great storms. 

 Professor Verrill encountered a striking example of this class of 

 phenomena several years ago while dredging under the edge of the 

 Gulf Stream, southeast of Long Island. 



One of the most peculiar facts connected with our dredging this season 

 was the scarcity or total absence of many of the species especially of 

 Crustacea, that were taken in the two previous seasons, in essentially the same 



localities and depths in vast numbers — several thousands at a time 



An attempt to catch the "tile-fish" {Lopholatilus) by means of a long trawl- 

 line on essentially the same ground where eighty were caught on one occasion 

 last year, resulted in a total failure this year. It is probable, therefore, that 

 the finding of vast numbers of dead tile-fishes floating at the surface in this 

 region last winter, as was reported by many vessels, was connected with a 

 wholesale destruction of the life at the bottom, along the shallower part of 

 this belt (in 70 to 150 fathoms) where the southern forms of life and higher 

 temperatures (48° to 50°) are found. This great destruction of the life was 

 probably caused by a very severe storm that occurred in this region at that 

 time, which by agitating the bottom-water forced outward the very cold water 

 that even in summer occupies the great area of shallower sea in less than 60 

 fathoms along the coast, and thus caused a sudden lowering of the temperature 

 along this narrow warm zone where the tile-fish and the Crustacea referred to 

 were formerly found.^ 



Barren areas. — Certain areas in many seas appear to remain 

 permanently almost entirely barren of life though surrounded by 

 areas crowded with marine life. One of the reasons for such barren 



' The Library of Natural History, III (1906), 768. 



^ A. E. Verrill, "Evidence of Great Destruction of Life Last Winter," Amer. 

 Jour. Sci., XXIV (1882), 366. 



