58 General Notes. [ January, 
surface had been firmly laid down. The lecturer then briefly de+ 
scribed the chief surface features of the globe, the action of wind and 
water and ocean currents; referred to the temperature of the sur- 
face of the sea, and explained that the most important, as well as 
the most direct, effect of the unequal distribution of temperature 
over the surfaces of the oceans and continents was an unequal dis- 
tribution of atmospheric pressure, varying more or less with 
season. e then proceeded: The advances during recent years 
in the knowledge of one form of life inhabiting the floor of the 
ocean surpassed those in any other department of oceanic investi- 
gation. Thousands of new organisms had been discovered in all 
seas and at all depths in the ocean, and either had been or were 
now being described by specialists in all quarters of the world. 
There did not seem to be any part of the ocean bed so deep, so 
dark, so still, or where the pressure was so great as to have effect- 
ually raised a barrier to the invasion of life in some of its many 
forms. Even in the greater depths all the great divisions of the 
animal kingdom were represented. As they descended into the 
deeper waters, and proceeded further seaward from the borders of 
the continents, species and the number of individuals became 
fewer and fewer, though they often presented archaic or embry- 
onic characters, till a minimum was reached in the greatest depths 
furthest from continental land. Distance from continental land 
was, indeed, a much more important factor in the distri- 
bution of deep-sea animals than actual depth. If they neg- 
lected the Protozoa and compared the results of twelve of the 
Challenger's trawlings and dredgings in the central line of the 
Pacific, in depths greater than 2000 fathoms, on globigerina ooze, 
radiolarian ooze, and red clay, with twelve trawlings and dredgings 
taken under similar conditions and depths, but on the blue and 
green muds within 200 miles of the continents, they found that 
the central Pacific stations yielded ninety-two specimens of ani- 
mals belonging to fifty-two species, all—with two doubtful excep- 
.tions—new to science, and among them thirteen new genera. On 
the other hand, the stations near the continents gave over 1000 
specimens, belonging to 211 species, of which 145 were new spe- 
cies and sixty-six belonged to species previously known from 
shallower water. Although no new types of structure had been 
discovered in organisms from the deep sea, the peculiar modifica- 3 
tions which animals had undergone to accommodate themselves 
to abysmal conditions were sufficiently interesting and remarka- 
ble. The eyes of some fish and crustaceans had become atrophied 
or had disappeared altogether, while in others they had become 
of exceedingly large size, or been so modified as to be scarcely 
recognizable as eyes. Fins and antenne had become extraordi- . 
narily elongated, and at times appeared to simulate the alcyonarians 
ofthe deep sea. The higher Crustacea and some families of fish had 
very few and very large eggs in the deep-sea species, while their _ i 
PF 
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