A. EYerr ill— Marine Fauna off New England Coast. 449 



these have been recently floated out to this region, while frozen 

 into the shore-ice, in winter and sprintr, from our shores and 

 rivers, and dropped in this region, where the iee melts rapidly 

 under the influence of the warmer Gulf-stream water. Possibly 

 much of the sand, especially the coarser portions, may have 

 been transported by the same agency. Another way, generally 

 overlooked, in which fine beach-sand may be transported long 

 distances, is by reason of its floating on the surface of the water 

 sfter it has been exposed to the air on the beaches and dried 

 The rising tide always carries off a certain amount of fine dry 

 sand floating in this way. In our fine towing-nets we always 

 take more or less fine siliceous sand, which evidently was 

 floating on the surface, even at considerable distances from the 



The prevalence of fine sand, along the Gulf-stream slope, in 

 this region, and the remarkable absence of actual mud or day 

 deposits indicate that there is here, at the bottom, sufficient 

 current to prevent, for the most part, the deposition of fine 

 argillaceous sediments over the up - ■• >p< j . in bo 



to 150 fathoms. Such materials are probably carried along till 



I believ 

 that such a result may be due directly 

 fishes and Crustacea that so abound on these bottoms. 

 fishes, like the "hake" {Phyeis), of which two spec 



