NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
807 
original characters of the bone had been completely obliterated. The Sharks’ teeth in 
this haul were also deeply imbedded in manganese depositions. 
On the 1st November, where the depth was 2025 fathoms and the deposit a 
Globigerina ooze, there were about a dozen nodules, two small Sharks’ teeth, and in one 
of the nodules a fragment of bone. 
On the 11th November, in Globigerina ooze, obtained from 1775 fathoms, there was 
over a gallon of rounded manganese nodules, the largest being about the size of a hen’s 
egg; but there were no Sharks’ teeth nor fragments of Cetacean bones, either separate 
or occurring as the nuclei of the nodules, which at this Station were formed around 
hardened portions of the ooze, or around volcanic fragments. 
The association of Sharks’ teeth, earbones of Cetaceans, manganese nodules, highly 
altered fragments of . volcanic rocks, and cosmic spherules, all in relatively great 
abundance in the deposits from the greater depths of the Central South Pacific, is a 
matter of considerable interest, and some of the chief points connected with these 
materials may be referred to in some detail. 
With respect to the earbones or fragments of other Cetacean bones, none were 
obtained in any of the dredgings north of the Equator either in the Atlantic or Pacific 
Oceans. In those south of the Equator, only one earbone was found in the blue muds 
surrounding continental shores, and this was in a depth of 2160 fathoms, over 100 
miles from the coast of South America. These Cetacean bones are almost equally rare in 
the Globigerina oozes: from these deposits one bulla of Ziphius was dredged from 2275 
fathoms in the South Atlantic ; this was the only Cetacean bone procured in the Atlantic. 
A fragment was also dredged in 1900 fathoms 100 miles off 
the Cape df Good Hope, and another fragment from 2025 
fathoms in the South Pacific. 
All the other bones of Cetaceans procured during the 
Expedition were dredged from red clay or Radiolarian ooze 
in very deep water far removed from land. If Station 160, 
in the Indian Ocean, 488 miles southwest of Australia, 
where there was a depth of 2600 fathoms, and where six 
earbones were procured, be excepted, all the Stations where 
these Cetacean remains were found are situated in the South 
Pacific, in a region the farthest removed from continental 
land on the surface of the globe, of which Tahiti may be 
taken as the centre (see Sheet l). 
It may be assumed that Whales are not more numerous in the regions where these 
remains have been dredged from the bottom, than in others where no bones of these animals 
were obtained by means of the dredge. Mr. Murray has pointed- out that the abundance 
of the bones in some localities and rarity in others is most probably connected with the 
(narr. ohall. yxp. — vol. i. — 1885.) 102 
Fig. 293'. — Section of a Manganese 
Nodule, showing a tympanic bone of 
Mesoplodon in the centre. 13th 
March 1874 ; 2600 fathoms. 
