MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT POET ERIN. 57 



lively few " living fossils " in the deep sea. The vast number 

 of new forms, however, added greatly to our knowledge of 

 the infinite variety and range of structure of almost all groups. 

 The expedition conclusively established the existence of 

 abundance of living things, from the lowest of marine animals 

 up to fishes, in even the great abysses of the ocean. 



If we make a careful survey of the fifty large quarto 

 volumes of Reports, we find that most of the innumerable 

 discoveries, with which the "Challenger" expedition has en- 

 riched Zoological science, are additions to our knowledge, either 

 of the abyssal animals that live at the bottom of deep water, 

 or of the plankton, those that float near the surface. Beginning 

 with the lower animals and working upwards, in the Radiolaria 

 Haeckel, who reported on the material, made known more than 

 4,000 species, for the most part new to science. The numerous 

 beautiful plates of the organisms forming Radiolarian and 

 Globigerina ooze are amongst the most important additions 

 to our knowledge of the Protozoa. A wholly new group of 

 Radiolaria, the Challengerida (Phseodaria), having a remarkable 

 skeleton of hollow spines formed of a peculiar combination 

 of silica with organic matter, and living in intermediate waters 

 at a considerable depth but not on the bottom, was added 

 by the "Challenger" investigations. 



Literally hundreds of new species of Sponges were 

 described in the " Challenger " Reports, and amongst these the 

 greatest interest attaches to the representatives of that 

 ancient and wonderfully beautiful group, the Hexactinellida, 

 in which we find Euplectella, the " Venus' flower basket " 

 of the Philippine Islands, and Hyalonema, the " glass rope " 

 sponge. 



In the Coelenterata the work of greatest novelty and 

 distinction was certainly that of the late Professor Moseley. 

 His remarkable report on " Corals " contains a section on 

 the Hydrocorallinse, which is full of original discoveries of 



