184 General Notes. [February, 
5000 meters, and a new species of Neæra, and different Crustacea 
occurred with others previously dredged. ore than fifty rosy 
Pentagonias were dredged, mixed with a less number of Oneiro- 
phanta, Archaster and Ophiomusium, attested the richness of 
this deep sea fauna. 
The bottom of the sea throughout this region is carpeted with 
a white ooze formed almost entirely of globigerines. Pumice and 
volcanic stones are mixed with it; but that which surprised us 
most was to find some pebbles polished and striated with ice ata 
distance of more than 700 miles from the coast of Europe. The 
distinctness of the striations could not allow us to admit that 
these pebbles had been transported by currents, because they 
would never have rolled, and, besides, they lay at such a great 
depth, that the tranquillity of the water there should be very 
great, to judge by the nature of the ooze deposited there. Their 
presence is probably due to transportation by floating ice, which, 
during the quaternary epoch, advanced further south than in our 
day, and which, melting in the part of the Atlantic ocean lying 
between the Azores and France, let the stones fall on the bottom 
with the fragments of rocks torn from the bed of the glaciers, 
and which they had transported there. 
Aug. 30th, dredging at the depth of 1480 meters in the Gulf 
of Gascony, revealed polyps of the genus Lophohelia, with 
splendid Pentacrini (P. ay & Petre gigantic Mopseas, Gor- 
gonias, and corals, etc.—A. S. Pac 
Tue Nervous System OF ANTEDON.—Various opinions have 
_been held in regard to the nervous system of the crinoids which 
has been held by some to consist of the bands along the bottom 
of each ambulacral groove corresponding to the nerve cords of the 
| star-fish, while others have maintained the nervous nature of the 
axial cord and its connections. Dr. Carpenter first suggested the 
| Othe the nature of this cord in 1865, and in 1874 further developed 
the theory that the axial cords are nerve-trunks, and the five- 
_ chambered organ in the centrodorsal basin is their center, and as 
proof adduced the fact that an eviscerated specimen suddenly 
and consentaneously closed its ten arms when a needle was thrust 
into the chambered organ. P. H. Carpenter, in 1876, was the 
first to maintain the nervous character both of the sub-epithelial 
bands of the ambulacra and of the axial cord. Recent experi- 
ments, carried on by Dr. A. M. Marshall, have established con- 
clusively that the central capsule and axial cords, with their 
Branches, constitute, as maintained by the Carpenters and Perrier, 
i main nervous system, while the sub-epithelial bands are also 
bably nervous, but have only a special and subordinate func- 
: Baas in connection with the ambulacral tentacles and epithelium. 
— The complex co-ordinated movements of swimming and righting 
- when inverted, are all executed by the axial system, as was 
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