Introduction and Acknowledgments

Off Cape Palliser, where the Cook Strait shelf is barely two miles broad, the sea-floor drops over a thousand fathoms in the course of twelve miles' surface-sailing. Working over these waters, a deep-sea research team led by Professor L. R. Richardson and Mr. J. A. F. Garrick has succeeded in taking echinoderms and other animals from depths as great as 1,300 fathoms. These investigations are being supported by a research grant of the University of New Zealand. Other expeditions led by Mr. G. A. Knox, Dr. R. K. Dell, Dr. Elizabeth Batham, Mr. J. A. F. Garrick and Mr. J. C. Yaldwyn have obtained echinoderms from 100 to 400 fathoms at various stations on the New Zealand coast. General accounts of these expeditions have been given by Yaldwyn (1957) and Knox (1957). A survey of the echinoderm fauna beyond the continental shelf is given here, with diagnoses of new forms, more detailed accounts, with half-tone illustrations, being planned for subsequent publication. I wish to express my gratitude to the leaders and members of the various expeditions for the opportunity of studying their collections, and also to the institutions which gave the expeditions practical or financial support; these include the N.Z. Oceanographic Institute (D.S.I.R.), the Marine Department, the National Committee on Oceanography, the Portobello Marine Biological Station, and the Victoria University of Wellington. For their assistance in obtaining overseas publications I am greatly indebted to Miss M. Wood and Mrs. J. W. Brodie, of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and to the Library staff of Victoria University.