THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



The phosphorescence remarked in some of the bottom 

 worms was also found in the copepods of the open sea. 

 The phosphorescence is displayed by cold-blooded animals, 

 living in a temperature always some degrees below the 

 freezing-point of fresh water, and it is shown equally 

 throughout the winter. 



Dredging at greater depths than twenty fathoms was 

 rarely possible, owing to the nearness of open water in 

 McMurdo Sound, always within a mile of the camp. 

 From this cause we did no deep dredging at all, only on 

 one or two occasions at nearly one hundred fathoms. 

 From the mouth of the bay down to the depth of one 

 hundred fathoms the bottom sloped steeply. Whether 

 from this cause or owing to the strong current in the 

 sound, there was no mud in this zone of the bottom. In 

 the shallower parts there were large and small kenyte 

 pebbles, but at fifty fathoms and upwards no pebbles were 

 got. The bottom appears to be carpeted with a dense 

 growth of living things, as if the dredge merely bit and 

 was immediately drawn up it was usually full of stuff. 



In this deeper region the animal life differed greatly 

 from that in the muddy bay, though many kinds were 

 found throughout both places. Here we first got the long- 

 legged sea-spiders (Pycnogonida) , glassy sponges, the 

 white shells of Lima, the delicate lace-corals, &c. The 

 sponges were especially abundant and in some variety, 

 though rarely of much beauty. One glassy sponge resem- 

 bled an egg, with bundles of long glassy spicules project- 

 ing at regular intervals from the smooth surface. 



In this region there was less orange and yellow colour- 

 ing, the tendency being to white. Most of the glass 

 sponges and many of the horny sponges were white or 

 pale cream-coloured, and the Lima shells and lace corals 

 were white. There were still some yellow sponges and 



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