THE VOYAGE OF THE CHALLENGER.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1542, 15 July 1873, Page 2

THE VOYAGE OF THE CHALLENGER.

Some further accounts of the discoveries made by the scientific explorers who are sailing round the world in the Challenger have been received from St. Thomas, where she . arrived on March 16. Life, it had been found, existed at all depths that had been E roved, and Professor Thomson expressed is conviction that it existed at every depth. One of the lions of the cruise is anew species of lobster, perfectly transparent. Not only haye animals been obtained with eyes so fully developed that the body may be said to be an appendage to the eyes rather than tlie eyes to the body, but there has been dredged up a new crustaceum,' in which the body has cut itself clear of the eyes altogether, arid the animal is totally bUnd. It has no eyes, ""nor even the trace of "an eye. To make "up its deficiency nature has supplied it with, the most beautifully-developed, delicate, ladylike claws, if one may use the term, it is possible .to conceive. Nearer the West Indies, in the depth of only half a mile, some similar creatures were brought up, and here 1 the claws, longer than the body, are armed throughout with a nniltitude of spike-like teeth, looking more like a crocodile's jaw than anything else. A few i blind animals 1 have been found before in the dark caves of Kentucky and elsewhere, but these are totally new. At a short distance from Tenenffe, in a depth of a mile and a half, a rich and extremely interesting haul of sponges and coral was obtained, but the ' latter was unfortunately dead. It is a white species, as large and heavy as the pink coral of the Mediterranean. There are great hopes ■ of obtaining a specimen alive. The nature of the bottom brought up, and the way the trawl and dredge frequently catch in being dragged along, prove, undoubtedly, that the bottom of the sea even at great depths, is not so smooth and free from rocks as has hitherto been supposed.