268 Dt\ William B, Carpenter [Jan. 23, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, January 23rd, 1880. 



Thomas Boycott, M.D. F.L.S. Manager, in the Chair. 



Dr. William B. Carpenter, C.B. F.R.S. 



Land and Sea considered in relation to Geological Time, 



When, in the summer of 1871, I placed before the First Lord of the 

 Admiralty (Mr. Goschen) the scheme of the ' Challenger ' Expedition, 

 I ventured to say that " the key to the interpretation of much of the 

 past history of our globe is at present lying at the bottom of the sea, 

 waiting only to be brought up." This prediction has been most 

 fully verified ; but, as in the case of many another prophecy, in a 

 sense very different from that in which it was uttered. 



The first of the general objects specified in my programme was 

 " the determination of the Physical condition of the Deep Sea in the 

 great Ocean Basins, as to depth, temperature, composition, and move- 

 ment," carrying out, over the Oceanic area generally, the inquiry 

 which had been inaugurated by my colleagues and myself on the 

 eastern margin of the North Atlantic. This object has been most 

 successfully accomplished, by a series of observations taken along 

 well-selected lines in the North and South Atlantic, the North and 

 South Pacific, the Southern and Antarctic Oceans ; which, combined 

 with the observations taken in the recent Arctic expeditions — British, 

 German, and Norwegian — afford a body of information as to the 

 Physics of the Ocean, sufficiently complete to afford a safe basis for the 

 scientific discussion of the remarkable phenomena now for the first 

 time brought into clear view. 



The second of the general objects which I specified was the deter- 

 mination of " the distribution of Animal Life on the Deep-sea bottom, 

 and the relation of the Deep-sea Fauna to that of past Geological 

 epochs." The inquiries previously carried out by my colleagues 

 and myself had shown (1) that there is probably no limit to the depth 

 at which Animal life can exist on the ocean-bed — a Far.na containing 

 representatives of all the principal types of marine Invertebrates, 

 having been found nearly three miles beneath the surface; (2) that 

 temperature exerts a most important influence on the distribution of 

 animal life on the sea-bottom ; and (8) that many of the forms now 



