Some diversions of a naturalist / by Ray Lankester.

  • Ray Lankester
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some diversions of a naturalist / by Ray Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rocks on which the village stands. Outside the harbour the depth increases precipitously to 200 fathoms. We sailed about 10 miles along the fiord, and determined precisely the spot indicated by Dr. Norman on the map, and here we lowered our dredge. We had fixed around the mouth of the dredge long tassels of hemp fibre, since on rocky ground, such as we were now dredging, one cannot expect much to be “ scooped up ” by the slowly travelling dredge as it passes over the bottom, whilst the threads of the hemp, on the contrary, entangle and hold all sorts of objects with which they come into contact. We were 1000 feet from the bottom, and our dredge took a good five minutes to sink as we paid out the rope from the winch in the stern of our boat. When it reached the bottom we let out another 2000 feet of rope, and then very slowly towed the dredge for about a quarter of an hour. Then the laborious task commenced of winding it up again, two men turning the handles of the winch for a quarter of an hour. At last the dredge could be seen through the clear water, and soon was at the surface and lifted into the boat. The hempen tangles were crowded with masses of living and dead white coral (Fig. 3), star-fishes, worms, and bits of stone covered with brilliant-coloured sponges, Terebratulae (a deep-water, peculiar shellfish, the lamp-shell), and other animals. There were only a few fragments of coral in the bag of the dredge. We filled glass jars with sea water and placed the bits of coral in them, and I eagerly examined them for the creeper-like “ Rhabdopleura.” There, sure enough, it was on several of the dead stems of coral, and we sailed back to Lervik with our booty in order to examine it at leisure with the microscope whilst still fresh and living. In our temporary laboratory at the farmhouse
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