MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 7 



by the departments of Geology and Geography will be assigned to 

 the departments of Zoology and Palaeontology. 



During the greater part of the year the assistant in charge was 

 absent from Cambridge with Mr. Agassiz on the cruise of the 

 "Albatross" in the tropical Pacific. The United States Fish 

 Commission steamer " Albatross " was placed at the disposal of 

 Mr. Agassiz to explore the islands of the tropical Pacific in con- 

 tinuance of his researches on coral formations. There accom- 

 panied him from the Museum, as assistants, Drs. A. G. Mayer and 

 W. McM. Woodworth. The government naturalists attached to 

 the ship were Dr. H. F. Moor and Mr. A. B. Alexander, and Mr. 

 C. H. Townsend, who remained with the expedition as far as Fiji. 

 The "Albatross" was commanded by Commander Jefferson F. 

 Moser, U. S. N., with Lieut. Hugh Rodman as executive officer, and 

 to the untiring interest of these two gentlemen and the officers of 

 the "Albatross" is due much of the success of the expedition. 

 The Hon. George M. Bowers, United States Commissioner of Fish 

 and Fisheries and the Navy Department at Washington, did every- 

 thing possible to advance the interests of the expedition. The ex- 

 pedition was assisted in every way by the officials of the different 

 governments in the Pacific, and was received with the greatest 

 courtesy and cordiality in the English, French, and German colo- 

 nies, and by the Japanese government. 



The " Albatross " sailed from San Francisco on August the 

 twenty-third, 1899, and arrived at Yokohama on March the fourth 

 of the following year, after having visited more than seventy-five 

 different islands in the Marquesas, Paumotus, Society, Cook, 

 Friendly, Fiji, Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, and Ladrone 

 groups. Two hundred and forty-nine different hydrographic sta- 

 tions were occupied. By far the deepest trawl haul yet made was 

 successfully accomplished in 4,173 fathoms, with the " Blake " 

 beam trawl, about seventy-five miles east of Togatabu, when large 

 fragments of a silicious sponge were brought up in the trawl. 

 Extensive collections were made with intermediate and surface 

 nets, and shore collections of all kinds. A number of hauls were 

 made with the Kramer quantitative nets to determine the relative 

 amount of pelagic life within and outside of atolls, and showed 

 the presence of a richer plankton in the atoll lagoons. More than 

 one thousand photographic negatives were obtained illustrating 



