Preface. 



The following extract from the Prefatory Note to the Account of the Deep 

 Sea Madreporaria collected by the B. I. M. 8. Investigator will serve to explain 

 how the collection of Deep- Sea Fishes described in the present volume came to 

 be made and to be presented to the Indian Museum. 



" In the year 1871 the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bengal appointed Dr. T. Oldham, 

 Dr. F. Stoliczka and Mr. J. Wood-Mason to form a suh-committee to report upon the desir- 

 ability of moving the Government of India to undertake deep-sea dredging in Indian waters. 



" The sub-committee drew up an elaborate Memoir on the subject, in which definite pro- 

 posals for deep-sea dredging were embodied : this Memoir was submitted to Government, and 

 a copy of it along with a copy of the letter with which it was forwarded, is published iu the 

 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1871. 



" The Government received the proposals of the Council of the Asiatic Society with cordial 

 approval : it gave a small grant-in-aid of carrying them into immediate effect, and when, in 

 1874, the present Marine Survey Department was established, it sanctioned the appointment, 

 upon the staff of the Survey, of a Surgeon-Naturalist — an appointment that had also been 

 strongly advocated by the organizer and first head of the Department, Commander Dundas 

 Taylor, I. N. 



"But in the early days of the Survey (1874-1881) neither machinery nor vessels capable 

 of deep-sea research were available, so that Surgeon (now Lieutenant-Colonel) J. Armstrong, 

 I. M.S., the first Surgeon-Naturalist of the Department, had to report that it was " quite impos- 

 sible to carry into execution the scheme of deep-sea dredging originally proposed by the Council 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," and had to confine himself to the Zoology of the shallow- 

 water and littoral, although he did occasionally manage to dredge in water as deep as 100 

 fathoms. 



" However, in 1876, when it had been decided to construct a special vessel for the accom- 

 modation of the Marine Survey, the Council of the Asiatic Society again addressed the Gov- 

 ernment of India, and asked that provision for deep-sea dredging might not be forgotten iu 

 the plans for the new vessel. In reply the Government authorized the Council of the Society 

 to confer with the Dockyard authorities on the subject of such equipment. 



" The Council thereupon appointed a sub-committee, consisting of Dr. John Anderson, then 

 Superintendent of the Indian Museum, and Messrs. J. Wood-Mason (then Deputy Superin- 

 tendent of the Indian Museum), W. T. Blanford, H. P. Blanford, and H. B. Medlicott, for the 

 purpose of advising the Dockyard authorities in this direction. 



" The result of this and other measures was that when, in 1881, the new vessel Investigator 

 was ready for sea, she was properly provided with the means of undertaking deep-sea research 

 as opportunity should occur. 



" Before this, however, Dr. Armstrong had left the Survey, and it was not until the end 

 of the year 1884, when Commander A. Carpenter, B. N., was appointed to the command of 

 the ' Investigator,' and Surgeon (now Major) G. M. J. Giles, I.M.S., to the post of Surgeon- 

 Naturalist, that deep-sea dredging became a recognized, if subordinate, branch of the ship's 

 routine. 



