14 BACKGROUND AND ORIGIN OF THE EXPEDITION 



suspected, and it was then that the first real deep-sea expeditions began. 

 They were started by Britain in the eighteen-sixties, the first large-scale 

 expedition being that of the British naval vessel the Challenger ( 1872 — 76) . 

 Now, for the first time, it was shown that there was a rich and varied 

 fauna at least as far down as 5,000 — 6,000 metres, both on the ocean 

 bed and in the deeper reaches of the free water masses. The pace of 

 deep-sea exploration then began to quicken. 



It was about this time that another branch of marine research was 

 founded, that of fisheries biology. The modernization and growing im- 

 portance of the fishing industry, together with the continued development 

 of natural science, was accompanied by systematic studies of the habits, 

 migrations, and growth of commercially useful fish and consequently of 

 factors influencing the stock. The study of marine fauna by marine-biolo- 

 gical and fisher)^-biological laboratories and research stations began at 

 about the same time, one of the first and most famous of the stations 

 being that at Naples, founded in 1872. 



Then, in 1902, came the establishment of the International Council 

 for the Exploration of the Sea, with headquarters in Copenhagen. Its 

 object was to coordinate the work of fishery-research institutions in north- 

 west Europe. Although principally concerned with practical problems, it 

 has been of great importance to the exploration of north-west European 

 coastal waters as well as the Arctic and north-east Atlantic. 



Danish participation in this international marine research was the basis 

 of the extensive work carried out by Johannes Schmidt, who established 

 the breeding biology and migrations of the fresh-water eel. It took many 

 expeditions to complete this work: first the voyages of the Thor in the 

 north-east Atlantic and Mediterranean, then the Atlantic cruises of the 

 Margrethe, the Dana I, and the Dana II, and finally the great Dana 

 World Expedition of 1928 — 30. All these expeditions yielded very large 

 and valuable collections of the fauna of the free water masses down to 

 depths of 3,000 — 4,000 metres, equal in importance to the collections 

 of bottom fauna made by the Challenger Expedition. 



Thanks to nearly two centuries of work, the Danish collections of ma- 

 rine fauna, from all over the world, were among the richest in existence. All 

 that was needed to complete them was a representative collection of the 

 bottom fauna of the greatest depths, if there was any. The Galathea 

 Expedition must be viewed against this background. 



The idea of a new Danish deep-sea expedition had often been mooted 

 but for various reasons never realized. The outbreak of war in 1939 

 meant the indefinite postponement of any such plans. However, one day 



