On some Remarkable Forms of Animal Life from the Great Deeps off the Norwegian Coast I. Partly from posthumous manuscripts of the late Professor Dr. Michael Sars. II. Researches on the Structure and Affinity of the Genus Brisinga, based on the Study of a new Species: Brisinga coronata. by Sars, George Ossian - 1872, 1875

Christiania: Brogger & Christie, 1872, 1875. First editions.

1872 TWO ILLUSTRATED MONOGRAPHS BY NORWEGIAN MARINE BIOLOGIST REVEAL DIVERSE LIFE AT FAR GREATER DEPTHS THAN PREVIOUSLY RECOGNIZED.

Two folio volumes bound in paper covers. Vol I 23.5x29 cm with yellow printed covers, viii, 82 pp; 6 copper-engraved plates (soiled covers; spine reinforced with brown paper; ends of spine bumped; unopened; ex libris Aquatic Research Institute; good),; Vol. II 22.5x27.5 cm with brown plain paper covers, iv, 112 pp, 4 copper plates, 3 autographic plates (ex libris Aquatic Research Institute; very good) in archival folding box.

GEORGE OSSIAN SARS (1837 - 1927) a Norwegian marine and freshwater biologist, joined the university at Christiana (now the University of Oslo) in 1857. He indulged his interest in natural history while studying medicine. Sars was a founding investigator of ichthyoplankton. In 1864, he was commissioned by the Norwegian government to investigate fisheries around the Norwegian coast. Sars' primary research focus was on crustaceans and their systematics. He described many new species in his career, including in his magnum opus, An Account of the Crustacea of Norway. He was awarded the Linnean Medal in 1910. He is remembered in the scientific names of a number of marine invertebrates, as well as the journal Sarsia, and the flagship of the Norwegian research fleet, the RV G.O.Sars. In a review of Sars' Remarkable Forms of Animal Life (Nature, July 3, 1873) Thomas Hincks writes, "As early as 1850, his illustrious father, Dr. Michael Sars, had challenged Edward Forbes's conclusions respecting the bathymetrical terminus of animal life. ... he was led to place the zero of animal life at 300 fathoms. Sars, on the contrary, even at the early period just mentioned, had obtained from a depth of 300 fathoms a number of animals, including a species of coral, molluscs, polyzoa, etc. ... More recently his son has devoted himself with much energy and success to deep-sea investigation, and in 1868 had extended his dredgings to 450 fathoms, and added no less than 335 species to those already published. ... In the important paper which forms the subject of the present notice, Mr. G. O. Sars has given us an account of some of the results of his dredgings in the "great deeps" off the Coast of Norway. ... Various new species of mollusca, annelids, corals, and sponges, all of them dwellers in depths varying from 100 to about 500 fathoms, are described, and illustrated by excellent figures. ... the paper, a portion of which I have summarised, is one of the most interesting and important contributions to biological literature, that have lately appeared."