The British vessels remained off Cuxhaven for three hours, engaged in the most novel combat in naval history.

Observations conducted at Cuxhaven in 1839, had revealed the existence, at the surface of the waters of the Baltic, of living Diatoms and Radiolaria of the same species as those which, in a fossil state, constitute extensive rocks of tertiary age at Caltanisetta, Zante, and Oran, on the shores of the Mediterranean.