70 
science the services of commanders of merchant vessels and 
seamen generally, in collecting specimens of natural history 
and information in natural science, whether in zoology, 
ethnology, botany, or meteorology, for which they have such 
facilities in all parts of the world, for the use of those scientific 
institutions which may desire to join in it, and also with a 
view to elevate the mercantile marine of England in the social 
scale by stimulating a taste for such knowledge amongst sea- 
faring men. The consent and co-operation of shipowners will 
of course be necessary, and Captain Anderson seeks the 
additional influence of merchants and scientific bodies. The 
subject met with the unanimous approval of the members 
present; and it was resolved that the portion of Captain 
Anderson’s letter relating to it should be published at the 
expense of the Section, for the purpose of eliciting opinions 
upon the feasibility of the scheme and upon the best practical 
method of carrying it into execution. 
Commander M. F. Maury, U.S. navy, forwarded copy of 
a letter from Lieutenant John M. Brooke, the inventor of 
the Detaching Deep Sea Sounding Apparatus, and enclosing 
for the Section a number of soundings from the North Pacific 
Ocean, which were obtained with small twine and spherical 
weights of about 701bs., which were detached upon contact, 
and left at the bottom of the ocean ; Lieutenant Brooke 
observes, that “ Nine consecutive casts (soundings), varying 
from 2,000 to 2,900 fathoms, were made with the same piece 
of twine and detaching apparatus, which last weighed less 
than lib.” As the specific gravity of a wet flax line 
is nearly that of water , a line that can he pulled down 
by a weight , may he pulled up by hand , provided the weight 
he detached at the bottom. One of the specimens obtained 
in 3,030 fathoms, nearly three and a half miles, is the greatest 
depth from which material has yet been brought up from the 
^cean bed. Lieutenant Brooke sent also a few specimens 
>btained by soundings in shallow waters, on the east coast of 
Siphon, Japan, by him during his boat voyage from Simoda 
' Hallodadi in 1855, under the orders of Commander 
dgers, U.S. navy. 
