Viewing page 78 of 146

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

76

in this report. The total number of dredging and trawling stations made by the Albatross up to the close of the present year was 679, the depths ranging from comparatively shallow water to 2949 fathoms. 

The collections of marine invertebrates obtained by the Fish Commission, therefore, represent a very wide range both geographical and bathymetrical, extending from the eastern edge of the Grand Bank to the northern extremity of South America, and from the neighborhood of the shore into the deepest water yet recorded off the eastern coast of the United States. The surface has everywhere been carefully examined, and large collections of the surface animals have been made. Not least among the functions of the Commission have been the improvements in methods of marine research,