Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean ...

—Z VOYAGE OF H.M.3. ' ALERT.During our further voyage through the South Atlantic a coursewas held which brought us over the Hotspur and Victoria Bankssubmei-ged coral-reefs which are situated between the parallels ofITg" and 12° S. lat., and are about ISO miles from the east coast ofBrazil. In these two places we plied our dredges in depths rangingfrom 35 to 39 fathoms, obtaining thereby a large number of zoologicalspecimens, among which were several novelties in the classesof Sponges and Polyzoa. The collection made at these stationsproved to be of special interest, as it helped to fill up a gap unavoidablyleft by the Challenger ' ' expedition in the marine zoology ofthe South Atlantic.On the 27th November we anchored in the esti;ary of the riverPlate, off Monte Video, where we remained until the 14th December.Sailing on the latter date, we shaped a course for the FalklandIslands, and arrived at Stanley Harbour on the 26th inst. A fewweeks prior to the time of our visit to the Falklands a peculiaravalanche of semifluid peat had poured down from the summitof one of the low hills, laying waste a portion of the settlement.AVe again put to sea on the evening of the 27th December, andsteering to the eastward, entered the Strait of ]\[agellan on thefirst day of the year 1S79. After stopping for a few days at theChilian settlement of Sandy Point, we proceeded to our surveyinggroundamong the channels on the west coast of Patagonia. Herewe spent the greater portion of the two succeeding years, executingsurveys of previously uncharted waters, and adding to those whichhad been partially eflPected by our predecessors in the same field ;but during the more rigorous winter months we each year proceedednorth to Coquimbo, on the Chilian coast, where our ship was refittedand fresh supplies of stores were obtained *. As the requirementsof the survey necessitated our visiting and anchoring in a greatmany bays and inlets in this remote region, frequent opportunitiesoccurred for shallow-water dredging, so that we were able to makea large collection of marine invertebrates— a branch of research towhich our attention was more especially directed, as we were awarethat in other departments of biology the work done by the Erebus ''and ' Terror,' ' Nassau,' and Challenger ' ' of our own navy, as wellas by many foreign vessels, left little to be desired.During the month of March 1880 a visit extending over a fewdays was made to Skyring Water, a large and almost completelylandlocked sheet of water situated to the eastward of the Cordillera,and, so far as we yet know, only accessible by ship through anarrow channel by which it communicates with the main Strait ofMagellan. And here I should remark that in the month of July1879, and during the surplus time allotted for refitting our ship onthe Chilian coast, a brief visit was made to the island of St. Ambrose,which lies about 500 miles to the north-west of Coquimbo.* During the winter of 1879-80 Sir George Nares returned to England, andwas succeeded in the command of the 'Alert ' by Captain Maclear, formerly ofthe Challenger ' ' Expedition.