1869.] on the Scientific Exploration of the Deep Sea. 475 



to be purely Arctic have been found to range southwards in deep water as 

 far as those dredgings extended — namely, to the northern extremity of the 

 Bay of Biscay ; and the considerations already urged render it highly pro- 

 bable that an extension of the same mode of exploration would bring 

 them up from the abysses of even Intertropical seas, over which a simi- 

 lar Climate prevails, and that an actual continuity may thus be found to 

 exist between the Arctic and the Antarctic Faunae. This idea was well 

 put forth some years since by our excellent friend Prof. Loven of Stock- 

 holm, in his discussion of the results of the deep-sea Dredgings executed 

 by the Swedish Spitsbergen Expedition of 1861, under Torell. "Con- 

 sidering," he says, " the power of endurance in these lower marine animals, 

 and recollecting the facts that properly Arctic species which live also on 

 the coast of Europe, are generally found there at greater depths than in 

 their proper home, and that certain Antarctic species very closely agree 

 with Arctic species, the idea occurs that, while in our own seas and those 

 of warm climates, the surface, the coast-line, and the lesser depths are 

 peopled with a rich and varied Fauna, there exists in the great Atlantic 

 depression, perhaps in all the abysses of our globe, and continued from 

 Pole to Pole, a Fauna of the same general character, thriving under severe 

 conditions, and approaching the surface where none but such exist, in the 

 coldest seas." It had, moreover, been long previously suggested by Sir 

 James C. Ross, on the basis of observations made during his Antarctic 

 voyage; for these observations had led him to believe that water of similar 

 temperature to that of the Arctic and Antarctic seas exists in the depths of 

 the Equatorial Ocean, and that Arctic species may thus find their way to 

 the Antarctic area, and vice versa. — The " similar temperature" believed 

 by Sir James Ross to have had this general prevalence seems to have been 

 39° ; whereas our observations distinctly prove that a temperature even be- 

 low 30° may be conveyed by Polar streams far into the Temperate zone, and 

 that the general temperature of the deepest part of the North- Atlantic 

 sea-bed has more of a Polar character than he supposed. Further, as 

 there must have been deep seas at all Geological epochs, and as the Phy- 

 sical forces which maintain the Oceanic circulation must have been in 

 operation throughout, though modified in their local action by the parti- 

 cular distribution of land and water at each period, it is obvious that the 

 presence of Arctic types of animal life in any Marine formation can no 

 longer be accepted as furnishing evidence per se of the general extension 

 of Glacial action into Temperate or Tropical regions. 



124. Whilst the question of Deep-Sea Temperature is one of the greatest 

 Biological interest, its determination is of even greater importance to the 

 Geologist, as affecting his interpretation of the phenomena on which his belief 

 in a former general prevalence of a Glacial climate is founded. For if a 

 Glacial temperature should be found now to prevail, and types of Animal life 

 conformable thereto should prove to be diffused, over the deeper portion of 

 the existing sea-bed in all parts of the Globe, it is obvious that the same 



