ccessful attempt to
bring up from great depths more of the sea bottom than would adhere to a
sounding-lead, was made by Sir John Ross, in the voyage to the Arctic
regions which he undertook in 1818. In the Appendix to the narrative of
that voyage, there will be found an account of a very ingenious apparatus
called "clams"--a sort of double scoop--of his own contrivance, which Sir
John Ross had made by the ship's armourer; and by which, being in
Baffin's Bay, in 72 deg. 30' N. and 77 deg. 15' W., he succeeded in bringing up
from 1,050 fathoms (or 6,300 feet), "several pounds" of a "fine green
mud," which formed the bottom of the sea in this region. Captain (now Sir
Edward) Sabine, who accompanied Sir John Ross on this cruise, says of
this mud that it was "soft and greenish, and that the lead sunk several
feet into it." A similar "fine green mud" was found to compose the sea
bottom in Davis Straits by Goodsir in 1845. Nothing is certainly known of
the exact nature of the mud thus obtained, but we shall see that the mud
of the bottom of the Antarctic seas is described in curiously similar
terms by Dr. Hooker, and there is no doubt as to the composition of this
deposit.

In 1850, Captain Penny collected in Assistance Bay, in Kingston Bay, and
in Melville Bay, which lie between 73 deg. 45' and 74 deg. 40' N., specimens of
the residuum left by melted surface ice, and of the sea bottom in these
localities. Dr. Dickie, of Aberdeen, sent these materials to Ehrenberg,
who made out[2] that the residuum of the melted ice consisted for the
most part of the silicious cases of diatomaceous plants, and of the
silicious spicula of sponges; while, mixed with these, were a certain
number of the equally silicious skeletons of those low animal organisms,
which were termed _Polycistineoe_ by Ehrenberg, but are now known as
_Radiolaria_.

[Footnote 2: _Ueber neue Anschauungen des kleinsten noerdlichen
Polarlebens_.--Monatsberichte d. K. Akad. Berlin, 1853.]

In 1856, a very remarkable addition to our knowledge of the nature of the
sea bottom in high northern latitudes was made by Professor Bailey of
West Point. Lieutenant Brooke, of the United States Navy, who was
employed in surveying the Sea of Kamschatka, had succeeded in obtaining
specimens of the sea bottom from greater depths than any hitherto
reached, namely from 2,700 fathoms (16,200 feet) in 56 deg. 46' N., and 168 deg.
18' E.; and from 1,700 fathoms (10,200 feet) in 60 deg. 15' N.