880 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 858 



him the gratitude of all subsequent gen- 

 erations of scientific workers. He directed 

 three expeditions in the Atlantic in the 

 U. S. S. Blake, and three in the Pacific in 

 the U. S. S. Albatross. These dealt espe- 

 cially with the deep-sea, and yielded an 

 immense number of new organisms and 

 new observations concerning the physical, 

 chemical, biological and geological condi- 

 tions of the great ocean basins. Agassiz, 

 being a practical engineer, was able to sug- 

 gest many improvements in deep-sea in- 

 struments and methods; the wire rope for 

 dredging and a modified trawl for deep- 

 sea work were among these improvements. 

 The general account of the Atlantic expe- 

 ditions is published in two volumes entitled 

 "Three Qruises of the Blake," and the 

 general accounts of the Pacific expeditions 

 are to be found in the bulletins and 

 memoirs of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology. It would be difficult to overesti- 

 mate the value of the zoological and other 

 collections amassed during these most ex- 

 cellent and extensive explorations. 



If we can say that we now know the 

 physical and biological conditions of the 

 great ocean basins in their broad general 

 outlines — and I believe we can do so — the 

 present state of our knowledge is due to 

 the combined work and observations of a 

 great many men belonging to many na- 

 tionalities, but most probably more to the 

 work and inspiration of Alexander Agassiz 

 than to any other single man. Agassiz 's 

 researches in the Atlantic resulted in very 

 definite knowledge concerning the subma- 

 rine topography of the West Indian region 

 and of the animals inhabiting these seas 

 at all depths — probably we know more of 

 this submarine area than of any other 

 area of equal extent in the world because 

 of his explorations. He arrived at the 

 ■general result that the deep-sea animals 

 of the Gulf of Panama were more closely 



allied to those in the deep waters of the 

 Caribbean Sea than the Caribbean forms 

 were to those of the deep Atlantic. Hence 

 he concluded that the Caribbean Sea was 

 at one time a bay of the Pacific Ocean, and 

 that since Cretaceous times it had been cut 

 off from the Pacific by the uprise of the 

 Isthmus of Panama. 



When the Challenger expedition carried 

 her explorations down through the central 

 southern Pacific, she found a rather puz- 

 zling state of things. In deep water rela- 

 tively very few animals were captured on 

 the bottom of the ocean when compared 

 with those taken in the great southern 

 ocean or nearer continental shores; those 

 obtained were, however, of rather pro- 

 nounced archaic types. The deposits in 

 the same area were of surpassing interest; 

 large quantities of a deep-brown clay were 

 hauled up, in which were imbedded enor- 

 mous numbers of manganese nodules and 

 concretions, some of them being formed 

 around sharks' teeth, ear bones and 

 other bones of whales, and others around 

 volcanic fragments mostly converted 

 into palagonite. Sometimes hundreds of 

 sharks' teeth and dozens of whales' ear 

 bones were captured in a single haul, and 

 most of them belonged to extinct species. 

 Small zeolitic crystals and crystal balls 

 were also mixed up in these red-brown 

 clays, evidently formed m situ. More ex- 

 traordinary still were the minute spherules 

 having a hard black coating and an in- 

 terior of pure iron and nickel, as well as 

 other minute spherules, called chondres, 

 found hitherto only in meteorites. These 

 spherules are believed to have an extra- 

 terrestrial origin, and to have formed at 

 one time the tails of meteorites or falling 

 stars. This was a strange assemblage of 

 things, and some scientific men argued that 

 such a condition of matters must be re- 

 garded as local and accidental. 



