THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



73 



The distribution of submarine creatures in the 

 fiord of Christiana at the south-eastern angle of 

 Norway has been inquired into by Orsted, and the 

 result of his researches* shows that the features of 

 the Boreal province are there slightly modified by the 

 Celtic fauna. Such mollusks as Chiton marmoreus, 

 Nucula tenuis, Syndosmya intermedia, Cemoria 

 noachina, and Astarte elliptica, accompanied by the 

 Echinoderms, Echinus neglectus, Goniaster granu- 

 lans, Brissus lyrifer, Cuviera squamata, and Holo- 

 thuria elegans, determine, however, the strict connec- 

 tion of the fauna of the southern shores of Norway 

 with that of her western coast. From the coast- 

 line downwards there appear the usual sequence of 

 green, brown, and red Algae, and the depths are cha- 

 racterised by the beautiful coral Oculina prolifera. 

 The Goniaster above noted ranges between thirty and 

 sixty fathoms, and the Holothuria lives at a depth 

 of eighty fathoms. The worm-inhabited tooth- 

 shell, Ditrupa, occurs in fifty fathoms water, with the 

 sea-rod, Virgularia, which ranges to sixty fathoms ; 

 the animal-flower, Anthea cereus, to eighty fathoms ; 

 and that most curious of sponges, the Tethya cranium, 

 so like an infant's head that we might almost fancy 

 it the capital extremity of some new-born merman- 

 child whom our dredge had decapitated in its 

 mother's arms, is found there, as in Zetland, at a 

 depth of eighty fathoms. 



Iceland sharing in the features of the Arctic and 



* See Kroyer's Tidoskrift, for 1845. 



