REPORT ON THE DEEP-SEA DEPOSITS. xxiii 
of organic remains, and the absence of organisms in certain strata convinced him that 
they had been formed at great depths or deposited prior to the existence of organisms. 
He observed that the number of organisms belonging to colder regions increased with the 
depth of water, and in the deeper zones of warm latitudes species are noticed which are 
inhabitants of the littoral zones of the highest latitudes. Forbes also showed that all 
sea-bottoms are not equally fit for the development of life, for in all the zones he found 
areas less peopled than others, these areas being mostly formed of ooze and sand, and 
inhabited only by creatures whose remains were not likely to be met with in a fossil 
condition. He explains the alternation of layers with and without fossils by changes in 
the level of the sea-bottom of the time. The science of Oceanography was greatly 
advanced by the researches of Forbes, more especially with regard to the distribution of 
marine animals,^ and in this respect Loven also materially contributed to the science. 
In 1845 Professor W. C. Williamson described some Foraminifera, Diatoms and 
Sponge spicules from some Mediterranean muds, and, in discussing the origin of 
limestone strata in shallow and deep waters, he suggests that the whole of the 
calcareous organisms may be removed by carbonated waters.^ 
In 1846 Captain Spratt, R.N., dredged from 310 fathoms, 40 miles east of Malta, 
eight species of Mollusca, and he expressed the opinion that life exists at much more 
considerable depths ; later, when surveying the Mediterranean between Malta and Crete, 
he obtained fragments of shells from a depth of 1620 fathoms. Both Spratt and Loven 
arrived at conclusions which proved the influence of temperature on the distribution of 
marine animals. 
In 1851 Professor J. W. Bailey applied himself to the microscopic study of the sound- 
ings collected by the U.S. Coast Survey within 100 fathoms,^ and he showed the important 
part played by Foraminifera in the deposits some distance off the coast of New Jersey. 
Owing to the abundance of these calcareous organisms the deeper deposits differed con- 
siderably from the shore deposits, in which mineral particles, especially quartz, predomi- 
nated. In 1856 he made known the nature of the soundings collected by Brooke in the 
Sea of Kamchatka in depths of 900 to 2700 fathoms.^ He remarks that in all the samples 
mineral matters diminished with increase of depth, and that while the mineral particles 
decreased the organic remains increased. Of organic remains Diatoms predominated, 
1 In 1850 Forbes presented his first general Report on the Marine Zoology of the British Islands to the British 
Association. This Report was of great importance to science, and in it he indicated the desirability of prosecuting 
further researches in the North Atlantic, opposite the Hebrides, around the Shetlands, and between the Shetland and 
Faroe Islands, thus pointing to a field of exploration which twenty years later became the scene of the investigations of 
Carpenter, Thomson, and Gwyn Jeffreys, and still more recently of Murray and Tizard. 
^ “ On some of the Microscopical Objects found in the Mud of the Levant and other Deposits,” &c., Mem. Lit. and 
Phil. Soc., Manchester, vol. viii. pp. 1-128, 1847. 
^ “ Microscopical Examination of Soundings made by the U.S. Coast Survey off the Atlantic coast of the United 
States,” Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. ii., article iii. pp. 1-15. 
* Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 2, vol. xxi. pp. 284-285, 1856. 
