92 president's addeess. 



elementary bodies ; and the important changes which Chemistry- 

 has brought about in our metallurgical operations. But these, 

 and many similar subjects, deeply important as they are, and 

 necessarily interesting to every student of J^ature, do not so 

 directly come within the province of the Tyneside ^Naturalists' 

 Field Club as the science of the study of life, namely, Biology. 

 Yet even within the restricted area of Biology so rapid has been 

 the march of investigation and acquired knowledge, that any 

 attempt in an address such as this to summarize, however briefly, 

 the progress of discovery, would of necessity end in failure. In 

 reviewing the past then I would narrow the scope, and select a 

 single topic to bring before you. It shall be Deep Sea Dredging, 

 which has largely occupied the attention of Il^aturalists through- 

 out the world during the period to which I have referred. At 

 the commencement of these fifteen years "Deep Sea Dredging," 

 as then understood, was being modestly inaugurated by Professor 

 M. Sars in 300-400 fathoms at the Lofoden Islands, and by the 

 British Association Dredging Committee, of which I was a mem- 

 ber, in 100-200 fathoms, to the north of Shetland; but now 

 Dredge and Trawl have brought us into connection with a new 

 world, so to speak, which had hitherto been cut off from the 

 knowledge of man by a great interspace of water several miles 

 deep. 



It is not my intention to go over again the oft-told tale of the 

 instances in which living organisms had been brought from con- 

 siderable depths. The fact remains that fifteen years ago the 

 views entertained by Professor E. Porbes, that the bed of the 

 ocean was azoic, was generally acquiesced in; and the great 

 majority of Naturalists held the opinion that animals could not 

 live without light, and under the great pressure which would act 

 upon them in depths greater than a few hundred fathoms. 



The explorations of H.M.S. 'Lightning^ in 1868, when Dr. 

 Carpenter and Prof. "Wy ville Thomson found animal life to exist in 

 great abundance in 500-600 fathoms between the Outer Hebrides 

 and Paroe Islands, seriously shook the confidence of those who 

 had maintained the azoic character of the depths of the sea ; and 

 when, in the following year. Prof. "Wy ville Thomson, in the 



