Evening star., 1899-07-29

a vessel specially fitted for the sort of work
contemplated and provided with elaborate
apparatus for the capture of marine crea-
lures of all sorts. The purpose In view will
be to study the little known fauna along
the edge of the continental shelf.
To make this clear, it should be ex
planned that the eastern edge of conti
nent is not marked by the surf line of the
ocean. If all the water of the were
dried up, you could walk sixty miles east
ward from Atlantic City, n. j., without
descending more than GO feet; but, at that
distance out, you would come to the true
edge of the great land mass called North
America. Then you would find before you
fairly steep hill, sloping rapidly like the
side of a mountain range to the floor of the
ocean, two ana half miles below.
In the WARM Stream.
Along the upper part of this continental
declvity,' as it is termed, runs northward
stream of warm water, on the shoreward
side of the gulf stream, bathing with it's
tempered current a narrow belt of the
slope. Ii comes directly from the Gulf of
Mexico, and brings with it immense num-
bers of tropical and semi-tropical animals
OF all sorts, which never go out OF the
warm stream; indeed, they cannot do so
without being frozen to death by the colder
water lying on either side. The river
they inhabit is sandwiched in between a
chilly current from Labrador on the west
ana the frigid depths beneath the gulf
stream the east.
The belt of the slope thus described is
the wonderland referred TO. The waters
that warm it are the home of myriads of
brilliant-hued fishes such as inhabit the
southern seas, while the bottom swarms
with gaudy crabs, some of them of gigantic
size, queer species of the sea urchin family,
formidable-loOkng spiders with i'm
mensely long legs, and marine worms that
equal in gorgeOuSness the most brightly
tinted flowers. All along the Atlantic coast
of North America runs this ribbon-like eX-
inc Ur~a, n ttl1ll lyr
until, as is believed, it disappears entirely
some distance south of Nova Scotia.
4 Marine Wonderland.
1t is only very recently that science has
known of the existence of this strip or any
thing at all about its peculiar inhabitants
and even now very little is understood re-
garding the latter. The contemplated ex-
pedtion has for its object better acquaint-
ance with the forms of life there to be
found, and it is hoped that valuable col
lections of new fishes, crustaceans, etc, will
be secured. TraWlS-i. e.. set lines a mile or
more in length, buoyed and provided with
baited hooks at intervals-will be used to
catch the fish, and dredges will be employed
to capture the star fish and other bottom
animals. The fish are all fiercely carnvor-
Gus, and many resember eelS in shape. while
some of the crabs are big and strong enough
to crush and break open the shells of large
biValve moluSks, on which they feed, with
the grip of a claw.
When the water is calm enough gauze
nets will be towed to gather in the smaller
creatures that live at the surface of the
warm belt of water, which are as peculiar
in their way as those that dwell on the
bottom. A quart measure of ''tow stuff'
thus collected will contain hundreds of
thousands of minute crustaceans, myriads
of tiny mollusks called 'pteropods' and
immense numbers of 'foraminifera or
window bearers-these last mere bits of iel-
ly inclosed in limy shells of elaborate and
infinitely varied design, through openings
in which they project long arms in search
of food. But perhaps the most interesting
of all the pelagic, or surface, animals of
the strip are those which drift northwar rd
with the gulf weed from the tropics-trans-
parent shrimps, transparent worms and
transparent cuttleishes that make their
homes in the weed. which is upheld by
bulbs filed with air.
Finding the Belt.
The fish commission steamer Fish Hawk
Will hrst have to find the tropicals belt
which is no easy matter, owing to its mar
rowness, and then to follow it along This
will be accomplished with the help of a
special apparatus consisting of a sounding
line Of wire with a heavy sinker on the
end, to which 10 attached a thermomatar