May 25, 18S3.] 



SCIENCE. 



447 



vessels engaged in such work have had. Each 

 year new improvements have been made. The 

 ' trawl-wings,' first introduced hy us in 1881, 

 have been used with great success ; for thej^ 

 have brought up numerous free-swimming ani- 

 mals from close to the bottom, which would 

 not otherwise have been taken. The use of 

 steel wire for sounding, and of wire rope for 

 dredging, has enabled us to obtain a much 

 greater number of dredgings and temperature 

 observations than would have been possible 

 under the old S3'stem of using rope, emploj'ed 

 even on the Challenger. The use of steel- 

 wire rope for dredging, first invented by Mr. 

 A. Agassiz, and verj' successfully emploj-ed 

 by him on the Blake, has proved to be an 

 improvement of verj' great value in deep 

 water. By its use there is an immense saving 

 of time, and consequently a great increase in 

 the value of the results. As an illustration of 

 the rapidity with which dredging has been 

 done on the Fish Hawk bj' using thewire rope 

 reeled upon a large drum, I give here memo- 

 randa of the time required to make a very 

 successful haul. In 640 fathoms, at station 

 No. 1124, the large trawl was put over at4.29 

 P.M. ; it was on the bottom at 4.44, with 830 

 fathoms of rope out ; commenced heaving in 

 at 5.17; it was on deck at 5.44 p.m. ; total 

 time for the haul, 1 hour and 15 minutes. The 

 net coirtaiued several barrels of specimens, 

 including a great number and large varietj' of 

 fishes, as well as of all classes of invertebrata, 

 — probably more than 150 species altogether, 

 man^' of them new. 



At all the localities that we have examined, 

 the temperature of the water, both at the 

 bottom and surface, was taken, as well as that 

 of the air. In many cases, series of tem- 

 peratures at various depths were also taken. 

 Manj' other ph3-sical observations have also 

 been made and recorded. Lists of the animals 

 from each haul have been made with care, and 

 arranged in tables, so far as the species have 

 been detei'mined up to date. 



South of New England the bottom slopes 

 very graduallj' from the shore to near the 

 100-fathom line, which is situated from 80 to 

 100 miles from the mainland. This broad, 

 shallow belt forms, therefore, a nearly' level, 

 submarine plateau, with a gentle slope sea- 

 ward. Beyond the 100-fathom line the bottom 

 descends rapidly to more than 1,200 fathoms 

 into the great ocean-basin, thus forming a 

 rapidly sloping bank, usually as steep as the 

 slope of large mountains, and about as high as 

 Mount Washington, New Hampshire. This is 

 well shown by diagram 1 , which illustrates the 



relative slope at several lines of dredging, and 

 the actual slope n'-o' along the line n-o. 

 We call this the Gulf Stream slope, because 

 it underlies the inner portion of the Gulf 

 Stream all along our coast, from Cape Hat- 

 teras to Nova Scotia. In our explorations a 

 change of position of less than 10 miles, trans- 

 verse to the slope, sometimes made a differ- 

 ence of more than 3,500 feet in depth. 



[To be Continued.'] 



THE INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES 

 EXHIBITION. 



It is just thirt3--two 3"ears, nearly the third 

 part of a centur3', since international exhibi- 

 tions wei;e inaugurated. The ' Great exhibi- 

 tion ' of 1861 marks an epoch in the histor3' of 

 England. It brought with it new aspirations 

 for culture, and new methods of education in 

 science pure and applied, in the arts aesthetic 

 and industrial, arousing, them to a new intel- 

 lectual life. " The Great exhibition of 1851," 

 remarks a popular novelist, a social philosopher 

 as well, "did one great service for country 

 people : it taught them how eas3' it is to get 

 to London, and what a mine of wealth, espe- 

 cially for after-memor3' and purposes of con- 

 versation, exists in that big place." It gave 

 them the great treasure-houses of South Ken- 

 sington, and the smaller kindred museums in 

 all parts of the United Kingdom. 



The world at large has profited b3- the same 

 experience, though perhaps to a less degree. 

 Ever3- nation, almost ever3' great cit3', has had 

 its ' world's fairs,' and, according to its capaci- 

 t3', has profited b3' their lessons. It is doubtful 

 whether we shall ever see another universal 

 exhibition so extensive as those of Philadelphia 

 (1876), of Vienna (1873) , and of Paris (1867). 

 The ideal has become too lofty ; and the exhi- 

 bition of to-dax', like the worker, must be de- 

 voted to a special t3-. The fisheries exhibition, 

 soon to open at South Kensington, is as nearly 

 as possible upon the site of the exhibition of 

 1851, and covers precisel3' the same area of 

 ground ; namely, twent3--one acres. It would 

 be instructive to estimate how large an extent 

 of territory would be covered b3' an exhibition 

 in which should be representee!, with the mi- 

 nuteness of to-da3^ all the divisions of the 

 classification of 1851, — a classification, which, 

 for minuteness, comprehensiveness, and philo- 

 sophical S3-stem, has not since been equalled. 

 An entire English shire would hardly suffice. 



Special exhibitions have probably entirel3' 

 superseded those of general scope, and their 

 number is 3"earl3' increasing. In one 3-ear, re- 



