by a reticulate deposit of calcareous salts, and in many armed with spines ” *.
Professor Eymer Jones describes the Ophimidæ as having “ the rays long and
simple (in contradistinction to Comatula and Gorgonocephalus), and says
“ they resemble the tails of so many serpents, but nevertheless are possessed of
moveable lateral spines on each side of every ray, which, although but mere
rudiments of what are seen in Comatula, may still assist in locomotion, or
perhaps contribute to retain the prey more firmly when seized by the arms, the
rays themselves being composed of many pieces cuiiously imbricated and joined
together by ligaments ; so that they are, from their length and tenuity, extremely
flexible in all directions, and serve not only for legs adapted to crawl on the
ground, but are occasionally serviceable as fins, able to support the animal in the
water for a short distance by a kind of undulatory movement ” f .
Lastly, iu the ‘ System der Asteroiden,’ by Müller and Troschel, “ the section
of the Ophiuridæ which want the pedicellariæ and the anus is divided into two
subdivisions, Ophiuræ and Euryalæ,” and it is most distinctly stated that the
former “ have arms fitted only for walking ” J.
These statements suffice to show that the structural peculiai-ities of the
Ophiuridæ are such as altogether to incapacitate them for raising themselves
for any distance, or lengthened period, from the bottom. Assuming,
however, the possibility of their having been carried from shallow water by
a current, in order to account for their adherence to such a limited portion
of the sounding-line as 50 fathoms out of 1310, it is also necessary to
assume that they swept past in a closely compacted column, precisely at the
period when these fifty fathoms passed downwards or upwards—a contingency
far from probable even if the line had been stationary, but rendered in the last
degree improbable when it is borne iu mind that it was moving through the
water at a mean speed of at least sixty yards per minute.
Again, it is hardly possible to believe that creatures constituted to inhabit
coast-lines, and dependent on the bed of the sea for their food, could have
retained vitality duiing the time occupied in drifting the 250 miles between the
* ‘ Palæontology/ by Richard Owen. London, 1860 ; p. 29.
t ‘ Animal Kingdom,’ by Rymer Jones, F.Z.S. London, 1841 ; p. 140.
t See ‘ Reports on tbe Progress of Zoology and Botany/ by Professor C. Th. v. Siebold. Published
for the Ray Society. London, 1841-42 : p. 331.
spot at which they were captured and the nearest land. The only superficial
current known to exist in this region *, instead of flowing from Iceland or any
of the northern coasts, flows towards them, and could not have transported these
Star-fishes from any position nearer than the eastern edge of the Newfoundland
banks. Of the presence of a deep-seated current there is no certain proof. I have
alluded in my Diary f to the indications of a drift between the Faroe Islands and
Iceland as being requisite to account for the slow transport of the volcanic
particles distributed in defined belts along that region, and have stated
my reasons for regarding it as a deep branch of the descending Spitzhergen
current which flows under the ascending branch of the Gulf Stream in its
transit to the equator. It is well knowm that a cold drift moves from the
North and South Polar regions towards the equator in order to equalize the
temperature and keep up the balance of the saline ingredients of the ocean.
But in latitudes beyond the influence of melting ice this drift must necessarily
flow at such depth as to involve the presence of the very conditions hitherto
regarded as fatal to animal existence, and at a speed which would be insufficient
to support, and far less to transport, creatui-es of such size and weight as those
referred to. Lastly, whether the Star-fishes are supposed to have drifted to the
position in which they were captured by a super-ficial or a deep-seated current, or
to have propelled themselves from some distant coast-line, it appears to me that
their vitality and healthy condition under such circumstances can only be regarded
as increasing, instead of diminishing, the difficulties in the way of an explanation
of the phenomena.
But, fortunately, the evidence on which I maintain that these Ophiocomæ
were captured on the sea-bed itself, in the midst of their normal haunts, is not
altogether of a presumptive kind ; nor is the discovery of animal life at extreme
depths restricted to two examples amongst the Ophiuridæ and Foraminifera.
Immediately on the completion of the sounding under notice, I carefully
examined the digestive cavity of one of the Ophiocomæ. The contents consisted
of a number of fresh-looking Glohigerinæ more or less broken up, minute
* I am indebted to Sir Leopold McClintock for the following observations, which clearly attest the
transit of the Gulf Stream in the locality at which the Star-fish sounding was taken;—Temperature of
air 44° F. ; temperature of the surface of the sea 48° F. ; temperature of sea at 100 fathoms 4 8 |° F.
t Sec Chapter I., p. 5 et seq.