EEPORT ON THE DEEP-SEA DEPOSITS. 
251 
experiments. The researches of the Challenger in this direction have been confirmed and 
extended by those of Chun, Hensen, Haeckel, and other naturalists.^ The researches 
carried out on board H.M.SS. “Triton” and “Knight Errant” in the Faroe Channel, 
and by the yacht “Medusa” in the deep lochs of the west of Scotland, conclusively 
show that some animals which, in their larval condition, are captured in the surface and 
subsurface waters, are found in the adult condition at the bottom in depths of 100 to 
400 fathoms. It wms also found that at definite depths in the intermediate waters 
different species were captured on the same day, but at different depths on the following 
day, thus showing an oscillation of the great floating banks of animals or Algse.^ When 
the tow-nets could be dragged within a few feet of the deposit without touching the 
ground, immense hauls of Crustaceans, largely Copepods and Schizopods were always 
obtained. 
Haeckel has extended the connotation of the term “ Plankton ” ^ to include all 
animals living in the waters of the ocean, in contradistinction to Benthos — those living 
on the bottom of the sea. Murray ^ has shown that the organisms living in mid-ocean in 
the great oceanic currents are quite different from those in the surface waters near land, 
and Haeckel proposes to designate the former oceanic Plankton, and the latter neritic® 
Plankton. We would suggest that the term oceanic Plankton be subdivided into pelagic 
Plankton for the animals living in the waters from the surface to 100 fathoms, zonary 
Plankton for those living in the intermediate zones between 100 fathoms from the 
surface and 100 fathoms from the bottom, bathybial Plankton for those living within 100 
fathoms from the bottom in the transitional area covered by deep-sea terrigenous 
deposits, and abyssal Plankton for those living within 100 fathoms from the bottom 
over pelagic deposits. 
While, however, life is universally present on the ocean’s bed and throughout 
the mass of oceanic waters, it by no means follows that it is uniformly distributed either 
over the first or throughout the second. It is well known that in shallow waters certain 
species are found on some banks or in some deep muddy pits, while they are absent in 
other localities under apparently, at the present time, similar physical conditions. The 
productiveness or fertility of certain stretches of the sea-bottom in shallow water would 
appear to be due to some unknown antecedent conditions. It is the same in the deep 
sea, for otherwise it seems impossible to account for the almost constant success of the 
^ Chun, “ Die pelagische Thierwelt in grosseren Meerestiefen und ihre Beziehungen zu der Oberflachen-Fauna," 
Bibliotheca Zoologica, Heft i., 1888 ; “ Die pelagische Thierwelt in grossen Tiefen,” Verhandl. d. GesellscJi. Deutsch. 
Naturf. u. Aerzte, Bremen, 1890 ; Ilensen, “ Einige Ergebnisse der Plankton-Expedition der Humboldt-Stiftung,” 
Sitzb. d. Berliner AJcad. d. Wiss, 1890, pp. 243-253 ; Haeckel, Plankton-Studien, Jena, 1890. 
® Tizard and Murray, “ Exploration of the Faroe Channel, during the summer of 1880, in H.M.’s hired ship Knight 
Errant,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xi. pp. 638-677, 1882 ; Murray, “ On the Effects of Winds on the Distribution of 
Temperature in the Sea- and Fresh-water Lochs of the West of Scotland,” Scot. Geogr. Mag., vol. iv. pp. 345-365, 1888. 
^ First introduced by Hensen in 1887, loc. cit. 
^ “ The Great Ocean Basins,” Nature, vol. xxxii. pp. 581 and 611, 1885. 
® son of Nereus. 
