JUl 27 183* 
JOURNAL 
OP THE 
ROYAL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 
JUNE 1898. 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 
V . — On Anchor Mud from the Malay Archipelago. 
By A. Durrand, F.R.M.S. 
( Read 1 6th February , 1898 .) 
Narrative. 
Ever since perusing A. R. Wallace’s 4 Malay Archipelago,’ which so 
attractively and graphically depicts the terrestrial life of the islands, 
curiosity about the denizens of the deep thereabouts existed in my 
mind ; dredgings I had made in Western Australia, Port Jackson, 
and at various stations within the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, 
from Townsville to Cape York and Thursday Island, led me to expect 
richer hauls on the north coast of Australia and in the warm shallow 
seas about the islands of the Archipelago. 
In 1884, and several times subsequently, in passing from Torres to 
Sunda Straits, I had stray opportunities of obtaining small samples of 
bottom which showed traces of a rich foraminiferal fauna ; and in 
1886, in steaming from Java to Singapore, I sounded at Muntok, 
Banka, and Rhiouw, with good results in Foraminifera and Diatoms, 
the latter station furnishing Navicula Durrandii . 
These casual results led to my getting the Netherlands India 
Steam Navigation Company, then (1889) controlled by the British 
India Steam Navigation Company, to instruct the commanders of 
their fleet plying about the islands of the Archipelago, to collect 
bottom from each port of call, the results of which are now submitted. 
The cleaned material was picked over first by me, and then by 
Mr. Fortescue W. Millett, who finally determined species, and whose 
careful elaboration speaks for itself. 
When it is remembered that all this series of material was taken 
from shallow water, more or less close inshore, in about 12 or 14 
fathoms generally, some idea of the richness of this great area in 
minute marine life may he formed, and what awaits those who can 
systematically conduct series of soundings or dredgings from shallow 
to deep water at the most typical stations indicated in this paper. 
1898 T 
