266 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



others have always found something. I have no theory. 

 I have merely tried to account for the differences of 

 results obtained by Chierchia, Murray, Chun, and others 

 by some rational explanation, and when I see one net 

 after another abandoned or condemned in successive 

 expeditions, I naturally condemn the results which ac- 

 companied and were deduced by them. But the writers 

 of the results do not seem to think that the one includes 

 the other." 



In the Eastern Pacific Expedition of the Albatross, in 

 1904-05, Agassiz again used the Tanner net a few times, 

 bringing up specimens (especially certain species of 

 jelly-fish) from three hundred and four hundred fathoms. 

 He is apparently at that time not sufficiently interested 

 in the matter more than to mention the facts ; the only 

 comment in his notebooks of the voyage being, " nothing 

 of any size below 350 to 400 fathoms." 



The problem that Agassiz had always considered of 

 greatest interest in connection with his deep-sea work 

 was the comparative study of the marine fauna on the 

 two sides of the Isthmus of Panama. When all the 

 reports of the numerous specialists who were working 

 on the various collections of the Blake and the Alba- 

 tross Expedition of 1891 were completed, he had always 

 hoped to summarize the results in a Panamic Report in 

 which he expected to establish some interesting conclu- 

 sions. Of this subject he says in his presidential address 

 before the International Zoological Congress in Boston 

 in 1907: — 



" Much has been written on the relationship of the 

 marine animals of the Caribbean and of the Panamic 



