MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 151 



compared to the wealth of species found in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf 

 of Mexico during the former cruises of the " Blake." 



Commander Bartlett did everything in his power to make up for the 

 absence of my assistant, and I was fortunate in again finding on board 

 the older officers of the " Blake," Messrs. Sharrer, Jacoby, Peters, and 

 Reynolds, whose industry, energy, and interest in the work has never 

 flagged, and who have now attained a proficiency in deep-sea dredging 

 hardly deemed possible three j'-ears ago. Lieut. Mentz and Dr. Persons 

 joined the "Blake" during the winter of 1879, and Mr. Duvillard was 

 attached to the " Blake " as recorder during the first part of our cruise. 

 During this short cruise we made no less than fifty hauls : we accom- 

 plished nearly as much as during the three months of the first cruise in 

 the Gulf of Mexico. 



As the greater part of the collections made during this cruise of the 

 "Blake" cover the extension into deep water of the ground already in 

 part occupied by the United States Fish Commission, I have arranged 

 with Professor Baird to send the bulk of the collections made north of 

 Cape Hatteras, for final study, to some of the naturalists to whom the 

 collections of the Fish Commission have been intrusted. 



During the winter of 1879-80, Commander Bartlett, while sounding 

 in the Western Caribbean Sea, made some twenty hauls with the trawl, 

 dredge, and tangles. These collections, made incidentally by the officers 

 of the "Blake," show the extension of the continental fauna of the 

 Eastern Caribbean to its extreme western portion. Pentacrinus was 

 found off Santiago de Cuba, and off Kingston, Jamaica. The deep-water 

 fauna was found to be the same as the deep-water fauna of the Eastern 

 Caribbean. 



Mr. Bartlett showed that a strong current passing over a ridge, as in 

 the case of the Windward Passage between Cuba and San Domingo, 

 swept it entirely clean, so that but little animal life was found to live 

 upon it. But immediately beyond this, on the Caribbean side, the 

 mud and silt are deposited in great quantities and animal life becomes 

 plenty again. This, as I have stated above, was also our experience 

 during the present cruise of the "Blake," while dredging along the so- 

 called axis of the Gulf Stream. 



Lieut.-Commander C. D. Sigsbee accompanied us on the " Blake," to 

 superintend in person the first trial of his collecting cylinder. It was 

 sent down in 30 fathoms, from 5 to 25 fathoms, with quite a fresh breeze 

 blowing, at about eleven in the morning, in full sunlight, — a time 

 when, with a smooth sea, the pelagic animals would all have been found 



