[Illustration: FIG. 1.--A portion of the branching tubular growth formed by Rhabdopleura Normani, fixed to and spreading over the smooth surface of an Ascidian, dredged at Lervik and drawn of three times the natural dimensions. The colourless tubes (b) stand up freely from the surface to which the rest of the growth is adherent, and from each of them issues in life (as seen at bb) a polyp such as that shown in Fig. 2. Each polyp is continuous with the dark internal cord (or rod) which is seen traversing the whole of the tubular system. a, points to the main and oldest portion of the branching stem; c, points to a "leading" shoot which is still adherent and will give rise to young buds right and left which will form upright tubes like b. The inset d represents a piece of the tube magnified so as to show the rings by which it is built up.] After a day or two we had everything in order, and at seven o'clock one morning sailed out of the harbour to make our first cast of the dredge. The mouth of the harbour of Lervik is 40 fathoms deep, and the great north-bound steamers enter it and come alongside the rocks on which the village stands. Outside the harbour the depth increases precipitously to 200 fathoms. We sailed about 10 miles along the fiord, and determined precisely the spot indicated by Dr. Norman on the map, and here we lowered our dredge. We had fixed around the mouth of the dredge long tassels of hemp fibre, since on rocky ground, such as we were now dredging, one cannot expect much to be "scooped up" by the slowly travelling dredge as it passes over the bottom, whilst the threads of the hemp, on the contrary, entangle and hold all sorts of objects with which they come into contact. We were 1000 feet from the bottom, and our dredge took a good five minutes to sink as we paid out the rope from the winch in the stern of our boat. When it reached the bottom we let out another 2000 feet of rope, and then very slowly towed the dredge for about a quarter of an hour. Then the laborious task commenced of winding it up again, two men turning the handles of the winch for a quarter of an hour. At last the dredge could be seen through the clear water, and soon was at the surface and lifted into the boat. The hempen tangles were crowded with masses of living and dead white coral (Fig. 3), star-fishes, worms, and bits of stone covered with brilliant-coloured sponges, Terebratulæ (a deep-water, peculiar shellfish, the lamp-shell), and other animals. There were only a few fragments of coral in the bag of the dredge.