The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-20
OPEN UP NEW WORLD
INDUSTRIOUS FORMS BROUGHT TO
LIGHT BY DEEP SEA
DREDGE
FIND INTERESTING SPECIMENS
Scientists All Over the World Are
Studying the Fauna Whose
Habitat Is the Bottom
of the Ocean.

Before the end of this year the world
will begin to learn such things about the
chasms of the deepest seas as it never
has dreamed of in it's widest dreams,
says the Washington Post. The United
States Great Britain, France, Germany
and Denmark are all approaching the
point where their scientists are ready to
begin systematic publication of results
attained in the various deep sea explor-
ing expeditions that were sent out in
the last few years.
The most remarkable among these re-
ports will be those telling of the work
of the German Valdivia expedition. which
| recently explored the seas off the Amer
lean, African Indian and Chinese coasts !;
the final reports of the Agassiz expedition
through the Pacific ocean, the final re-
ports of the German members of the
Challenger expedition, which are being
published now in Germany in a mag
n1flcent edition with colored plates, and
the reports of the various expeditions Of
| the Prince of Monaco
twenty-five years ago the deep sea was
an unknown world. Here and there.
scattered in museums far apart and
gazed at with amazement and ignorant
| wonder and unavailing speculation. were
forty or fifty monstrous shapes. They
| were deep sea forms that, driven upward
from their eternal night by some fatality.
| mad been picked up dead on the surface
| or washed ashore. They taught the
| world nothing. Men did not even know
that. they were deep sea forms 1t was
oeHeVed then that there was no life be-
low depth of 1000 feet. Those forty or
MY uhcanny creatures represented no
more to the world, scientific and Law than
did the bodies of the strange red men
which, according to tradition were
washed on the shores of the Old wor1d
oeIore the discovery of the New limiting
at the existence of unexplored realms In
laplteo by unknown races, but Supply
ing no further information.
But When the first cropping Wire arm Of
the nrst~ deep sea dredge vibrated on the
oot t''l IN the ooze of the black pits of
water and those depths felt the thrtu
OF human life for the first time since +na
wofla was evolved from formlessness into
nelhg, at once new and awful page IN
+ the stupendous book of nature was I'm
lo1ueo. 1t was chapter of revelation
me writer has often heard DR.. Rean
tel the FEELING of worshiping wonder and
awe that overcame the two scieptists
MheI the traWl came up to the surface
saio. we were both standing by
the mouth of the net when. as tbA1
man lifted the end Of the bag +wo
strange forms fell out ON the deeL
single glance was enough to tell us that
they were new to our fauna and probabIv
unknown to science. They seemed ike
visitors from another world, and none of
the strange forms which have since pass
ed through our laboratory has brought
half so much interest and enthusiasm.
NOW, looking back on the great harvest
IN the field Of oceanic ichthyology which
we have had the pleasure of helpf7fg to
garner in the fifteen years which have
passed since that hapDv and, ever+f,,I
morning, it seems incredible that Amer
lean naturalfsts should not then have
known that only few miles from the
American coast there was a fauna as
unlike that of our shore, as anything that
could be found in the Indian ocean or In
| the seas of China"
Today more than 700 different kinds of
| fish, taken from depths of 1000 feet and
| more, are known to science and have