SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 
79 
Corallines, and a quantity of sand, mud, and small stones.” 1 Ross’s deepest dredging 
was made at 10 a.m. on the 11th August 1841, in lat. 33” 32' S., long. 167° 40' E., when 
the dredge was let go in 400 fathoms ; after being dragged along the ground for half an 
hour, it was hauled on deck, and found to contain “ some beautiful specimens of Coral, 
Corallines, Flustrse, and a few Crustaceous animals.” The reflections of the accomplished 
leader of the expedition are extremely significant, but so completely had Ross’s researches 
faded from memory, that twenty years after they were made, the fact of living creatures 
being found under 400 fathoms of water was hailed as a great discovery. Yet Ross, 
referring to his dredgings in 1841, says: — “ It was interesting amongst these creatures 
to recognise several that I had been in the habit of taking in equally high northern 
latitudes ; and, although contrary to the general belief of naturalists, I have no doubt 
that from however great a depth we may be able to bring up the mud and stones of the 
bed of the ocean, we shall find them teeming with animal life ; the extreme pressure at 
the greatest depth does not appear to affect these creatures ; hitherto we have not been 
able to determine this point beyond a thousand fathoms, but from that depth several shell- 
fish have been brought up with the mud.” 2 
From the fact that the same species were to be found towards both poles, and that Migration of 
these animals are very sensitive to a change of temperature, he suggested that it would ppo^oNifpr^-i 3 
be possible for them to pass from one frigid zone to another, provided the temperature of Region to the 
the intervening sea bottom had a range not exceeding 5° F. Ross’s observations con- 01HER ,UOGrE ' ?A> ‘ 
firmed his idea that the temperature at the bottom of the open sea was uniform in all 
latitudes, and subsequent investigations prove this, generally speaking, to be correct. 
Sir James Ross was an indefatigable zoological collector, but it is to be regretted 
that the large collections of deep-sea animals, which he retained in his own possession 
after the return of the expedition, were found to be totally destroyed at the time of his 
death. Had they been carefully described during the cruise or on the return of the 
expedition to England, the gain to science would have been immense, for not only 
would many new species and genera have been discovered, but the facts would have been 
recorded in journals usually consulted by zoologists, instead of being lost sight of as 
was the case. A large number of zoological drawings made by Hooker during the 
Antarctic cruise were recently handed to the various naturalists engaged in -working up 
the Challenger collections, and show that some of the Challenger discoveries had been 
anticipated by Ross. 
Humboldt addressed a letter to Lord Minto, First Lord of the Admiralty, with 
1 Antarctic Voyage, p. 207. 
2 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 202, 203. The organisms dredged from 2400 feet by J. C. Ross were examined by Stokes and 
Forbes, who found small corals, fragments of shells, two articulations of a small fossil (?) Pentacrinites, a spine of Cidaris, 
fragments of Echinus, a small broken Cerithium, a fragment of Gleodora, and a few rock fragments Besides these 
organic remains Foraminifera were very plentiful belonging to the genera Textularia, Nodosaria, &c. (see Wallich 
op. c it., pp. 80, 81). 
