THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 77 
little during the past winter, into the ground; however, I got 
a few sponges and sections. One of the former (incomplete, un- 
fortunately) displays the pores of, perhaps, a plain globular 
form (flattened by pressure). The pores and their arrangement 
differ from all seen previously. 
NOTES ON A FEW DEEP SEA DREDGINGS, (Big 
FROM THE EAST. 
In the Manuel of the Mollusca, by Woodward, published many 
years ago, the author states that out of 408 shells collected up to 
that time in the Red Sea, 70 were Mediterranean and 40 Atlantie 
ones, which had migrated into it in early pliocene times, while 
others represented Indo-Pacific ones that extended their range 
into the Mediterranean at an early age. He does not say whether 
any shells are peculiar to the sea itself, but since the publication 
of the Manual, the writer noticed, on the part of Malachologists, 
expressions of regret that dredging in the sea had been greatly 
neglected. 
I have recently received, through the post-office, from India, 
a small pareel. One of the specimens, a Rostellaria of the 
Strombide family, appears to the writer to be of considerable 
geological importance, as it may tend to modify our views re- 
garding the depth of ancient seas, judging from the organic re- 
mains discovered on the now elevated sea bottoms. In one of 
the early papers read to the Geological Section, I pointed out 
that one of the leading Geologists in Great Britain (Professor E. 
Forbes) had arrived at the conclusion that as sunlight was only 
known to penetrate to a certain depth in modern seas, we had 
positive proof where color was found in fossils extracted from the 
primeval sea in which the mountain limestone rocks were de- 
posited, that the seas in question could hardly have exceeded 50 
fathoms. How erroneous was this opinion was fully demonstrat- 
ed by the deep sea dredging of the Challenger Expedition. 
Scientific men sent from Great Britain; the many dispatched 
from the United States of this continent for a similar purpose, 
