A letter concerning deep-sea dredgings, addressed to Professor Benjamin Peirce, Superintendent United States Coast Survey / by Louis Agassiz.

Date:
[1871?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter concerning deep-sea dredgings, addressed to Professor Benjamin Peirce, Superintendent United States Coast Survey / by Louis Agassiz. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    3/6 (page 51)
    we may look for high spired Natica-like types, for representatives of Acteonella, Avellana, and the like; for small Volutoids of the tertiary and cretaceous types, for Rostellarias, even for Nerineas, and more particularly for forms intermediate between Firula and Cyprea. Among Acephala I would expect a variety of Myacea approaching those de- scribed in my monographs of that family from the Jurassic and cre- taceous formations, such as Ceromya, Corimya, Circomya, Goniomya, Myopsis, etc., with Panorpa and Pholadomya, and others recalling per- haps also Cardinia, Gresslya, or Cardiacea more closely related to Cono- cardium than the living species, perhaps leading to Opis, or Trigonise of extinct types akin to Myophoria, with Pachymya, Diceras Gram- misia, Inoceramus, Pterinea, Monotis, and Posidonia. Rudistes should take the place of oysters, and the harvest of Brachiopods should be large. Among Crustacea it is natural to suppose that genera may be dis- covered reminding us of Eryon or of Pemphyx Gampsonyx, or some Amphipods, and Isopods aping still more closely the Trilobites than Serolis; or Limuloids approaching that extinct family. The classifica- tion, embryology, and order of succession of Ecliinoderms is now so well known, that it is perhaps still more easy to anticipate the char- acter of discoveries in this branch of the animal kingdom than in any other. I expect confidently, to find Spatangoids approaching Holaster, Toxaster, Ananchytes, Hemipneustes or Metaporhinus, and others akin to Dysaster, Echinolamps approaching Pygurus, Nucleolites tending to Clypeus, Galerites, like Pyrina or Globator, etc., etc., and again Cida- rids akin to C. glandifera and clavigera with Glypticus-like species, and Codiopsis, Coelopleurus, Cyphosoma, and Salenia. Among Starfishes the types of Goniaster and Luidia are likely to prevail, with simple rayed Euryaloid genera, and among Crinoids a variety of genera reminding us of Pentremites, Marsupites, Penta- crinus, Apiocrinus, and Eugeniacrinus. The question of the affinities of Millepora will probably receive ad- ditional evidence, and genera connecting more closely the Rugosa and Tabulata with one another, and with the Acalephs may be expected in the shapes of branching Heliopores and the like. With the monograph of Pourtales upon the deep-sea corals before me, it would be sheer pretence to say anything concerning the prospect of discovering new representatives of this or that type. His tables point them out already.