546 DEEP-SEA DEPOSITS. 



^reat interest, and equally remarkable results were readied by Wy ville 

 Thomson and Carpenter wlio explored first in the neigbborliood of the 

 Faroe Islands and afterwards in the Mediterranean. 



Perceiving in the data already acquired the promise of future dis- 

 coveries, several English scientists conceived the project of a voyage 

 around the world for this special object, a vast scheme and one to 

 which they devoted all their efforts. The admiralty, after conferring 

 with the Royal kSociety, put at their disposal a screw steam corvet of 

 1,200 horse power, the Challenger, which swept with its dredge the 

 bottom of all oceans, and whose name will last forever in tlie history 

 of science. The scientific commission on board was provided with 

 machines, laboratories, and every resource that could be desired, and 

 was ]n'esided over by Sir Wyville Thomson, who, as we have seen, had 

 previously undertaken similar explorations. 



The exi)edition of the Challenger, like several of those which pre- 

 ceded it, was si^ecially designed to search for living things at great 

 depths, but it was also proposed in the programme to study with care, 

 by soundings and with the dredge, the forms and the mineral constitu- 

 tion of the great ocean bottoms. 



The relatively small quantity of sediments heretofore collected in 

 pi'evious cruises, and the very limited areas to which the investigations 

 had been confined, did not permit the statement of general laws con- 

 cerning the distribution of the deposits formed in the abysses of the 

 sea. Their geological importance, nowever, was perceived from the 

 early researches, and they thus opened the way for special explorations 

 in this new realm. 



Tlie voyage of the ChaUmger lasted for three years and a half, from 

 December 7, 1S72, to the 27tli of May, 1870. It was made under the 

 command of Sir George S. Nares, who in January, 1875, left the shij) 

 to the command of Capt. Frank Thomson, in order that he himself 

 might direct the Alert and the Diseoverij to the Arctic seas. 



A publication composed of thirty-nine large volumes has acquainted 

 us with the numerous conquests which science owes to this memorable 

 enteri^rise, specially in zoology, botany, physics, and chemistry. The 

 magnificence of the edition, the beauty of the maps and of the plates, 

 many of which are colored, leave nothing to be desired. The last vol- 

 ume,* under the title of Deep-Sea, DeposlU, describes the nature of the 

 bed of the seas at their greatest depths. It is a collection of informa- 

 tion for the most i^art entirely new, and the things brought to light are 

 Of a nature which greatly stimulates the imagination. 



If we consider how rich is the array of observations contained in 

 this volume, it will not seem astonishing that its authors have made us 



* Report on the scieutific results of the \oya,ge oi 1:1. M.^. Challenger. Beep-Sea 

 Deposits, by John Murray and Rev. A. F. Renard. Published by order of the English 

 Goveinment, Loudon, 1891. Large quarto, (xxix aud 396 pages, with 43 maps, 2^ 

 diagrams, and 29 lithographed plates.) 



