38 



On Wednesday evening, December 14th, Dr. Wyville 

 Thomson, F.R.S., delivered a lecture on " The final results 

 of the ' Lightning' and ' Porcupine' Expeditions." 



Dr. Thomson referred briefly to previous lectures he had 

 delivered in the Museum, explanatory of those deep sea re- 

 searches, in which, during the last three or four years, he had 

 been engaged in conjunction with other naturalists. Not very 

 long ago, the conditions existing at the bottom of the sea had 

 been examined to the depth only of some 80 fathoms. Na- 

 turalists had imagined that living organisms grew fewer and 

 fewer the deeper down one went, and, judging from the incom- 

 plete data then obtainable through private dredgings and other 

 observations, had arrived at the conclusion that a zero of life 

 existed at about 300 fathoms. But recently, owing to im- 

 proved appliances, and from the fact of these observations 

 being conducted from British Government vessels, in the very 

 best possible way, with the best instruments and most com- 

 plete machinery, under skilled supervision, dredging had been 

 successfully effected from a depth of about 2,500 fathoms — 

 say 1% miles down. The principal depth, however, at which 

 the observations of his colleagues and himself had been made, 

 had been from 500 fathoms, over a district lying along the 

 western coast of Europe. Instead of there being a zero of 

 life at these depths, life existed in numberless and beautiful 

 forms. The special object of his present address was to de- 

 scribe, in rough outline, what kind of life existed at these great 

 depths, and what relations the forms existing there bore not 

 only to present but extinct fauna. At 800 fathoms, forms of 

 life were found — including nearly all the Echinoderms — which 

 we had been in the habit of terming boreal, because it was 

 only in Arctic seas, though in much shallower water, we had 

 hitherto had any opportnnity of becoming acquainted with 

 them. Now, these had been dredged off the coasts of Spain 

 and Portugal at 600 to 800 fathoms. From careful examina- 

 tion and collection of facts, the truth seemed to assert itself 



