“ represents, conjeoturally, the northern, limitation of the Atlantic at the time
“ when it did not communicate with the Arctic basin*,”—thus lending a powerful
confirmation to the view I have endeavoured to establish.
At the present time, when the attention of naturalists is directed to the
evidences of the community of types ascribable to the animals and plants
of Europe and the North American Continent, and the question to be decided is
whether the ancient communication between these two countries was effected
across the North Atlantic or North Pacific Oceans, it is of the utmost consequence
that every fact likely to throw light upon it should be made public.
Under this impression I have been induced to exhume the evidences above cited,
and to append my reasons for inclining to a belief that the tract over which the
‘ Bulldog ’ sounded may have formed, in ages gone by, one of the stepping-stones
which connected the eastern and w’estern hemispheres of the globe.
I t has been stated that two of the soundings taken since the ‘Bulldog’
entered on the survey of the direct route between Cape Farewell and Eockall
have proved of high interest. The first of these, which indicated 748 fathoms
in a part of the North Atlantic basin at which we might reasonably have
expected to find an increase instead of a diminution in depth, has already been
noticed. The second can only be cursorily touched upon in this place, masmucii
as it involves the entire question of life at extreme depths in the sea, and must
therefore be discussed at length hereafter. This sounding far exceeds in importance
any prerious sounding on record; for not only does it for ever determine
the fact that animal existence may be maintained at depths vastly greater
than by most persons has been believed possible, but it proves the fallacy of
several of the conditions which have heretofore been supposed to limit the
bathymetrical distribution of animal life, and points to the existence of a new
series of creatures peopling the deeper abysses of the ocean, and destined, perhaps,
to furnish many of the missing links between the submarine faunas of the Past
and Present. That single sounding, I may be permitted to say, compensates
for every disappointment that weather and accident may previously have
engendered. At the eleventh hour, and under circumstances the most unfavourable
for searching out its secrets, the deep has sent forth the long-coveted
* ‘ The Natural History of the European Seas,’ by the late Professor Edward Forbes, F.R.S.
Edited and continued by R. Godwin-Austeu, E.R.S. London, 1859, p. 286.
What mechanical ingenuity failed to achieve, hunger or curiosity
accomplished; and thus whilst the sounding-apparatus only succeeded in bringing
up from a depth of 12C0 fathoms a number of minute shell-covered creatures,
so simply organized as to render them incapable of perceiving or escaping a
danger, thirteen star-fishes, ranging in diameter from 2 to 5 inches, came up
convulsively embracing a portion of the sounding-line which had been paid out
in excess of the already ascertained depth and rested for a sufficient period at
the bottom to permit of their attaching themselves to it. These star-fishes
arrived at the surface in a living condition, and, what is still more extraordinary,
continued to move their long spine-covered rays for a quarter of an
hour afterwards—clearly proving that, if their adherence to the sounding-line
was due, in the earlier stage of their progress upwards, to a clonic spasm of the
muscular tissue, neither life nor nervous energy ceased till after the lapse of the
period mentioned.
This sounding, taken at a distance of about three degrees to the eastward of
the position at which a depth of 748 fathoms was met with, indicates an increase
of 572 fathoms, or about 150 fathoms in excess of the depth ascertained at the
same distance in the westwaid direction. The discovery of the star-fishes in this
situation, although it can in nowise detract from the validity of the fact
regarding the presence of living creatures at the greatest depths, may nevertheless
be associated in some measure with the subsidence of the sea-bed, inasmuch
as, during the lapse of ages, the successive descendants of the star-fishes that
originally inhabited the shallower waters present before such subsidence took
place may, by degrees, have become capable of maintaining their existence under
the now altered conditions, m e t h e r this has or has not been the case must
unfortunately remain for ever a matter of mere speculation; but, supposing it to
have been so, it would only tend to prove that, in certain instances, transitional
habits may be acquu-ed without producing transitional characters; and if the
possibility of animal life at extreme depths be admitted (as I take for granted it
must be henceforth), it is just as reasonable to assume that the ancestors of
animals now capable of existing in shoal water may have lived originaUy at
extreme depths, the one transition being in nowise more wonderful than the
other. The hard-shelled Echinoderms are constituted for creeping, and not for
swimming; and hence, if it could be shown that any of them (such as Palmijies.