on board H.M.S. 'Challenger. 9 531 



show these appearances. The jelly-like aspect and the matter 

 coloured with carmine can always be removed from the spirits- 

 preserved specimens of the ooze by treating with distilled water. 

 In all cases the jelly-like or mobile aspect of the oozes is found to be 

 due to the presence of the fiocculent precipitate from the sea- 

 water associated with the ooze. 

 No free albuminous matter could be detected.' 



"When it is remembered that the original describers worked with spirit- 

 preserved specimens of the bottom, the inference seems fair that Bathy- 

 bius and the amorphous sulphate of lime are identical, and that in 

 placing it amongst living things, the describers have committed an error. 



Origin oe Deep-Sea Clays. Eelative rate oe Deposition oe 

 Deposits. Conclusion. 



The very wide distribution of pumice, vesicular lava, or light scoriae has 

 been already alluded to. Some of the bottoms which have been classed 

 under the head of clays, as 2900 fathoms south of Tongatabu, are largely 

 made up of pumice in a fine state of division. Pumice or vesicular 

 lavas have, in short, been found in all the kinds of deposits, most 

 abundantly in the vicinity of volcanic islands and in the deep-sea clays. 

 It appears to be universally present, and its disintegration is most 

 probably the chief source of the clayey matter found in oceanic deposits. 

 North of the Sandwich Islands we for several days got small pieces of 

 pumice floating on the surface, most of the pieces being covered with a 

 fungoid growth. In this connexion it may be well to remember that 

 Mr. Bates states somewhere that he found pumice rather common, 

 floating on the surface of the Amazons, over a thousand miles from the 

 nearest volcanic region. Many instances are given by Sir Charles Lyell of 

 volcanic ashes having been transported to great distances by the wind. 



At Honolulu Mr. Green informed me that Peles hair had been picked 

 up in his garden there after an irruption of Kelauea in Hawaii, a distance 

 of about 180 miles from the crater. If there be an ash after the carbo- 

 nate of lime is removed by carbonic acid or other agent, this will be 

 another source of the clay. 



Mr. Buchanan has determined in the clays the presence of copper, 

 cobalt, and nickel, in addition to iron and mauganese. Eemembering 

 this, one is tempted to suggest the presence of meteoric or cosmic dust 

 in these deposits. 



When we have had a good haul from a red-clay bottom, when the bag 

 comes up full of nodules, tympanic bones, and sharks' teeth, we cannot 

 resist the idea that we are dealing with things of a vast antiquity, and 

 that we have evidences of a very slowly accumulating deposit. When 

 there has been no reason to suppose that the trawl has sunk more than 

 one or two inches in the clay, we have had in the bag over a hundred 

 sharks' teeth and between thirty and forty ear-bones of cetaceans ; some 



