88 REPORT ON DREDGING AND OTHER MARINE RESEARCH 



History Society's Museum ; Mr. Thomas Brady, of Jarrow ; 

 Mr. William Sparkes, of Sunderland ; Mr. Gibson, Mr. John 

 Dent, jun., and Capt. Robinson, of Blyth, who kindly accom- 

 panied us for the purpose chiefly of taking observations of 

 latitude and longitude. The party assembled at Blyth on the 

 evening of August 20th, and after a comfortable night on the 

 " Stanley," made a start seaward at six o'clock on the morn- 

 ing of the 2 1 St. We took a north-east course for about thirty 

 miles, and put over the dredges and nets for the first haul 

 about 25 miles east of Alnmouth in a depth of 50 fathoms : 

 from this point we drifted and steamed slowly during the 

 day on a south-easterly course, dredging and tow-netting at 

 intervals. Through the night we steamed leisurely south- 

 wards, finding ourselves early next morning about fifteen 

 miles east of Sunderland : our course was then changed and 

 we ran northwards, still using at frequent intervals the 

 dredges and nets, and reaching Blyth at an early hour in the 

 evening. The weather was delightful, and the sea in excellent 

 condition during the whole cruise. 



One of the chief objects of the expedition was to obtain a 

 better knowledge of the North Sea Plankton. It is evident 

 that the food upon which vast shoals of pelagic fishes such 

 as herring and mackerel subsist, though mostly made up of 

 small animals, must itself ultimately be nourished upon 

 vegetable organisms, or at any rate upon organisms capable 

 of living like plants upon inorganic material. But hitherto 

 no appreciable quantity of plant-life has been found in the 

 North Sea, except close to the shore, in the littoral and 

 laminarian zones. The tow-nets during the " Stanley " cruise 

 were used perseveringly at the surface, at the bottom and at 

 various intermediate depths, but we failed altogether to detect 

 diatoms or living algge of any other kind. It was only in 

 dredged material that a very few broken fragments of diatom- 

 chains could, with the greatest care, be discovered. But on 

 the other hand our tow-netting completely swarmed, in many 

 cases, with infusoria of the dinoflagellate type, and we are 

 disposed to think that these minute organisms, though not 



