EEPORT ON THE DEEP-SEA DEPOSITS. 
275 
The inner portion of the large Ziphius beak gave the following results : — 
Moisture, 
. 1'14 per cent. 
Combined water. 
278 
Carbonic acid. 
6-81 „ 
Phosphoric acid, 
33-30 
Fluorine, 
1-65 
= 72'69 per cent, tricalcic phosphate. 
Station 289, 2550 fathoms. — Three large tympanic bones, 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm.) 
in length, apparently belonging to the genus Balsenop>tera, and two nodules with bony 
nuclei. 
The inner portion of an earbone of Balsenopteva was used for the following deter- 
minations : — 
Moisture, . . . . 1'61 per cent. 
Phosphoric acid, . . . 3273 „ = 71 '44 per cent, tricalcic phosphate. 
Fluorine, .... 1'61 „ 
Station 293, 2025 fathoms. — One small indeterminable fragment of bone, impregnated 
with manganese. 
Station 299, 2160 fathoms. — One bilobed tympanic bulla, with the petrous bone 
attached, apparently of a Glohiocephalus. 
On comparing the preceding analyses of these deep-sea bones and teetld with analyses 
of recent and fossil bones,^ it is found that as regards the phosphoric acid there is not much 
divergence, except where there is much manganese in the specimen : in deep-sea bones 
the percentage varies from 27 to 34, in recent bones 22 to 34, and in fossil bone 33 ; 
the same is the case with the lime : in deep-sea bones 36 to 49 per cent., in recent bones 
30 to 41 per cent., and in fossil bone 48 per cent.„ 
The most striking difierence is in the fluorine, the percentage of which in recent 
bones is only 0‘004 to 0'032 per cent., in fossil bone 1’50 per cent., while in deep-sea 
bones it varies from 0'65 to 1‘89 per cent., and in deep-sea teeth it reaches 2‘28 per cent. 
These deep-sea specimens of bones and teeth thus resemble fossil bones in the large per- 
centage of fluorine they contain. This fluorine might be assumed to be the original fluorine 
of the bones rendered more abundant by the removal of the lime salts, but more probably 
it owes its origin to a continuous, though slowly progressing, double decomposition between 
the phosphate of the bone and the trace of dissolved fluorides in the sea-water. 
Some of the bones and teeth were in a much better state of preservation than others ; 
in some the coating of manganese was very thin, and the Haversian canals and lacunae 
were but little impregnated by that substance, so that a fractured surface was greyish 
white ; in others, not only were the bones thickly encrusted, but the canals and lacunae 
were nearly all infiltrated with the manganese, as will be seen by reference to the illustra- 
tions on Plate X., so that the fractured surface was brown or black, and the bones very 
' See Analyses Nos. 137 to 153, Appendix III. ^See Analyses Nos. 153A, B, C, D. 
