Sir C. Wyville Thomson's correspondence on the "Challenger" fishes 77 



Senior Bursary in anatomy and physiology from Edinburgh, while the Junior Macken- 

 zie Bursary went to one D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson for "... the greatest 

 industry and skill in the particular anatomy work during the winter session ". Francis 

 Maitland Balfour, 1851-1882, had just published his monograph on the Develop- 

 ment of Elasmobranch Fishes* German carp were introduced in southern United 

 States waters, and the previous year the U.S. Fishery Commissioners had "... made 

 a present of a million ova of the California salmon ... to the Government of New 

 Zealand ", about 95% of which were reported to have produced " healthy fish ".f 

 Over 100,000 individuals were employed directly or indirectly in the Scottish fisheries, 

 and the Herring Board stated that: 



With the exception of the occasional and uncontrollable influences of the weather which cause 

 temporary fluctuations in the catch, the sea fisheries of Scotland and the herring fisheries in 

 particular, are beyond the reach of any power to impair their abundance. 



The British Association Meetings for 1879 opened in Sheffield on August 20th, and 

 Professor G. J. Allman chose for the subject of his presidential address, " An Account 

 of the Most Generalized Expression of Living Matter ". He made particular reference 

 to the grey gelatinous material which appeared in preserved samples of the deep-sea 

 dredgings made from the Porcupine at depths of 5,000-25,000 feet, and of the fact 

 that it had appeared to be " . , . obviously endowed with life '". He recounted how 

 it had been examined by Huxley, who declared it to consist of protoplasm and 

 envisaged this living slime as extending over wide areas of the sea bottom as a sort 

 of pabulum on which the animals living at these depths fed in the absence of plant 

 life. Huxley had named the material Bathybius haeckelii, and Haeckel had fully 

 supported Huxley's conclusions. Allman went on to state that the reality of Bathybius 

 had not been universally accepted and that the Challenger did not find it. It remained 

 for J. Y. Buchanan, Challenger chemist, to prove that the material was an inorganic 

 precipitate owing to the action of the preserving fluid, alcohol. Huxley, in thanking 

 Allman at the conclusion of his address, admitted that he had christened Bathybius. 

 " He had hoped, indeed, that his young friend Bathybius would turn out a credit to 

 him, but he was sorry to say as time had gone on Bathybius had not verified the 

 promise of his youth " (London Times, August 21, 1879). 



This was the great early period of oceanography. Wyville Thomson's cruises on the 

 Porcupine and the Lightning in the North Atlantic had destroyed Edward Forbes' 

 conception of the azoic zone. In 1870 Thomson, now forty, and having spent seven- 

 teen years teaching in Ireland, succeeded Allman in the Chair of Natural History at 

 Edinburgh. The Challenger expedition followed, with Thomson as director of the 

 civilian scientific staff on board. As Murray (1895) reports, " After circumnavigating 



* Macmillan and Co., London, 1878; reprint of papers in \hQ Journal of Anatomy ami Physiology, 

 1876-1878. The present-day classics on Elasmobranchs are by Bicelow and ScHROEDtR (1948 and 

 1953). 



t At the same time the question of introducing California salmon into British waters was the subject 

 of much debate in England. One writer, Sir Rose Price, emphasized the "... extremely risks 

 nature of the experiment ", and claimed these fish would not take a fly and had no flavour. He 

 concluded by stating, "The mortality among salmon in California is simply incredible" (London 

 Times, April 16, 1879). 



