38 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I shall quote one more description (p. 160) of a haul of a 

 dredge supplied with rope " tangles " from deep water : — 



" I do not believe human dredger ever got such a haul. 

 The special inhabitants of that particular region — vitreous 

 sponges and echinoderms — had taken quite kindly to the 

 tangles, warping themselves into them and sticking through 

 them and over them, till the mass was such that we could 

 scarcely get it on board. Dozens of great Holteniae, like 

 ' Wrinkled heads and aged, 

 With silver beard and hair.' 

 a dozen of the best of them breaking of? just at that critical 

 point where everything doubles its weight by being lifted out 

 of the w^ater, and sinking slowly away back again to our 

 inexpressible anguish ; glossy wisps of Hyalonema spicules ; 

 a bushel of the pretty little mushroom-like Tisiphonia ; a 

 fiery " constellation of the scarlet Aslropecten tenuispinis ; 

 while a whole tangle was ensanguined by the • disjecta membra ' 

 of a splendid Brisinga."* 



In the final chapters of the book he discusses such highly 

 important and controversial matters as Deep-sea Temperatures, 

 the Gulf Stream and the Continuity of the Chalk. In sum- 

 marising the results obtained in regard to the deep-sea 

 fauna, he says (p. 80) : — 



" Finally, it had been shown that a large proportion of 

 the forms living at great depths in the sea belong to species 

 hitherto unknown, and that thus a new field of boundless 

 extent and great interest is open to the naturalist. It had been 

 further shown that many of these deep-sea animals are speci- 

 fically identical with, tertiary fossils hitherto believed to be 

 extinct, while others associate themselves with and illustrate 

 extinct groups of the fauna of more remote periods ; as, 

 for example, the vitreous sponges illustrate and unriddle 

 the ventriculites of the chalk." 



* For descriptions and figures of Holtenia and other new deep-sea 

 Hexactinellid Sponges, see his Memoir in the Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. for 1869. 



