“During the several cruises of H.M. ships Lightning and Porcupine in the years 1868, 1869, and 1870,” says Dr. Wyville Thomson, “fifty-seven hauls of the dredge were taken in the Atlantic at depths beyond 500 fathoms, and sixteen at depths beyond 1,000 fathoms, and, in all cases, life was abundant.  In 1869, we took two casts in depths greater than 2,000 fathoms.  In both of these life was abundant; and with the deepest cast, 2,435 fathoms, off the month of the Bay of Biscay, we took living, well-marked and characteristic examples of all the five invertebrate sub-kingdoms.  And thus the question of the existence of abundant animal life at the bottom of the sea has been finally settled and for all depths, for there is no reason to suppose that the depth anywhere exceeds between three and four thousand fathoms; and if there be nothing in the conditions of a depth of 2,500 fathoms to prevent the full development of a varied Fauna, it is impossible to suppose that even an additional thousand fathoms would make any great difference."[5]

[Footnote 5:  The Depths of the Sea, p. 30.  Results of a similar kind, obtained by previous observers, are stated at length in the sixth chapter, pp. 267-280.  The dredgings carried out by Count Pourtales, under the authority of Professor Peirce, the Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey, in the years 1867, 1868, and 1869, are particularly noteworthy, and it is probably not too much to say, in the words of Professor Agassiz, “that we owe to the coast survey the first broad and comprehensive basis for an exploration of the sea bottom on a large scale, opening a new era in zoological and geological research.”]

As Dr. Wyville Thomson’s recent letter, cited above, shows, the use of the trawl, at great depths, has brought to light a still greater diversity of life.  Fishes came up from a depth of 600 to more than 1,000 fathoms, all in a peculiar condition from the expansion of the air contained in their bodies.  On their relief from the extreme pressure, their eyes, especially, had a singular appearance, protruding like great globes from their heads.  Bivalve and univalve mollusca seem to be rare at the greatest depths; but starfishes, sea urchins and other echinoderms, zoophytes, sponges, and protozoa abound.

It is obvious that the Challenger has the privilege of opening a new chapter in the history of the living world.  She cannot send down her dredges and her trawls into these virgin depths of the great ocean without bringing up a discovery.  Even though the thing itself may be neither “rich nor rare,” the fact that it came from that depth, in that particular latitude and longitude, will be a new fact in distribution, and, as such, have a certain importance.

But it may be confidently assumed that the things brought up will very frequently be zoological novelties; or, better still, zoological antiquities, which, in the tranquil and little-changed depths of the ocean, have escaped the causes of destruction at work in the shallows, and represent the predominant population of a past age.