The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1874-03-04
CurIosIties of the Deep Sea.


The London Ne,oS furnishes the follow
ing hints with reference to the results of
the Challenger expedition
In the section between Bermudas, the
Azores and Madeira, the bottom tempera-
ture was ascertained nineteen times. and
seventeen station series of temperature
soundings were taken at various intervals
and to different depths, but usually at in
tervals of 100 fathoms from the surface to
1900. The bottom temperature was found
to be on the whole very uniform. This
section, like the first between Tenerife
and St. Thomas, is divided into two
troughs, this time by the plateau of
Azores but there seems every likelihood
that the " Dolphin rise" of the. first sec
ton is continuous with that plateau. The
eastern valley is here, however, very much
contracted, and the western, which in
cludes the little pinnacle of Bermudas, is
widened to corresponding degree.
Twenty-Five depth soundings were taken
in this section, and on each occasion sut-
ficient sample of the bottom was recover
ed The depths between Bermudas and
Madeira were not so great as in the
first section, no single sounding having
reached 1000 fathoms. A number of
soundings in the western valley gave a
calcareous ooze more or less mixed with
red clay, containing many foramenifera,
but not preponderance of recognizable
globigerina to this Professor Wyville
Thomson has given the name of gray
ooze." Near the Azores the ooze first be-
came mixed with small Jumps of pumice,
and as the ship got in among the islands,
gave place to a volcanic sand, the product
of the disintegration of beds of volcanic
ash and of trachytic and doleritic layas.
The deep-water dredging along the line
was not very productive so far as animal
life is concerned, though many new forms
were added, several of them of great In
terest Many of the species were identi-
cal with those developed in the Light
ming and Porcupine and in the Challenger
in Der Northern section and the entire as
semblage certainly confirms the opinion
that the deep-sea fauna is very uniform,
and that its constituent species are very
widely distributed. Many of the species
which are found in the seas of the Azores
at depths beyond 900 fathoms have
remarkable correspondence with northern
types; and Professor Thomson regards
this as simply additional evidence of the
wide extension of deep-sea fauna living
under conditions similar to those of lesser
depths in higher ATTITUDES.
On Wednesday June IS, the ship was in
about lat. 80 deg. n and long. 60 deg. w.
In this part of the voyage the absence
of the higher forms of animal life was
very striking. The Challenger was now
in the neighborhood of the Sargasso Sea,
with which those on board had now be-
come familiar, as they had already nearly
circumnavigated it. Not sea-bird was
to be seen, with the exception of a little
flock of Mother Carey's chickens, which
kept playing round the ship, on the watch
for food, every now and then concentrat-
ing upon some peculiarly rich store of
scraps as it passed astern, and staying by
it while the ship went on for quarter Of
a mile, fluttering above the water and
daintily touching it with their feet as they