858 SIR JOHN MURRAY. 



Christmas Island. The island was annexed to Great Britain, and a 

 company under Murray's presidency developed a highly prosperous 

 mine. Some years before his death the company had already paid 

 in royalties, for the protection of the English flag, more than the entire 

 cost of the Challenger expedition! 



This enterprise made Murray rich, and while he accepted the 

 opportunities which the possession of wealth offers to an intelligent 

 man, it in no way affected his interest in the pursuit of science. One 

 of the chief projects of his last years was to equip a vessel on the lines 

 of the Prince of Monaco's "Princesse Alice," and set out in her for a 

 protracted cruise around the world in the interest of oceanography. 



Murray was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American 

 Academy in 1900. Among the many other honors that came to him 

 in recognition of his scientific work, he received the Prussian order 

 'Pour le Merite. Punch celebrated the event with a cartoon, which 

 always delighted Murray. As the final decision in the award rests 

 with the King of Prussia, the picture represents the Kaiser who has 

 called for the publications of the candidate. Vistas of lackeys are 

 staggering in loaded with the mighty volumes of the Challenger 

 Report, while the astonished monarch asks ui amazement wh^- the 

 name of this prolific author had not been previously suggested. 



Under a somewhat brusque manner, Murray could not conceal 

 a genial kindliness, and deep human sympathy and interest. His 

 devotion to research was combined with a strength of will and a stead- 

 fastness of purpose, that rendered him singularly efficient in anything 

 he undertook, whether scientific or practical; for he had an unusually 

 clear and steady vision in worldly affairs, uncommon in the devotee 

 of pure science. 



His connection with the Challenger Reports began a wide acquaint- 

 ance among scientific men; his business interests in Christmas Island, 

 Canada, and the United States threw him in broad touch with a 

 different world. Accustomed to meet many varieties of people, the 

 readiness with which his keen and active mind struck fire in contact 

 with other men, made him, wherever he went, a commanding figure. 

 Murray had little sympathy for those whom he termed the hod 

 carriers of science. Men whose mental actiN-ities seem to be satisfied 

 in collecting undigested facts. Not that he undervalued facts, but 

 that he strove to fit them into the body of human knowledge. He 

 never lost sight of the aim of science, a deeper insight into Nature, and 

 a broader outlook on the Universe. 



In 1889 Murray married Isabel Henderson, daughter of Thomas 



