I. Remarks on Professor Wyville Thomson's preliminary notes on the nature of the sea-bottom procured by the soundings of H. M. S. 'challenger'

The extreme interest of two of the questions started and partly discussed in Professor Wyville Thomson’s communication will be deemed, I trust, a sufficient reason for my offering such contributions as my own experience furnishes towards their solution. The first of these questions is, whether the by theGlobigerinæ accumulation of whose shells theGlobigerina -ooze is being formed on the deep-sea bottom, live and multiplyon that bottom, or pass their whole lives in the superjacent water (especially in its upper stratum), only subsiding to the bottom when dead.