38o SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



naturalist or the physicist who goes down to the sea in 

 ships. This is owing to the fact that the study of the sea, 

 and especially of the animals and plants in it, is yet in its 

 youth, and the progress of our knowledge is not to be 

 measured by the milestones of volumes recording the work 

 and speculation of recent years. 



The two magnificent volumes which close the record of 

 the work of the Challenger Expedition (i) are in every way 

 worthy of their fellows in the series of fifty containing the 

 whole account of this celebrated voyage. It is just a 

 quarter of a century since H.M.S. Challenger sailed on a 

 voyage which was to make discoveries, comparable only 

 with those of Columbus and his immediate successors. 

 The ocean which covers three-fifths of our oflobe was 

 barely known to us, though admirable research had been 

 steadily increasing our knowledge and speculations for a 

 century. As an introduction to the two volumes containing 

 the " Summary of Results," Dr. John Murray has given an 

 interesting historical account of oceanography from the 

 earliest times, illustrated with a series of maps representing 

 the growth of geographical ideas. 



The ingenious arguments founded on neither experi- 

 ment nor observation, which were indulged in up to last 

 century as to the depth of the sea, etc., are typical of all 

 other early ideas on the subject. Even while the mapping 

 of trade routes was in an advanced state of development, 

 knowledge of the ocean remained strictly superficial. 

 Cook's First Voyage (2) in the Endeavour (1768-71), 

 carrying Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander as naturalists, 

 marked the beginning of true observation of the sea. 

 The Journal kept by Banks on this voyage, recently 

 edited by Sir Joseph Hooker, has made known to us the 

 fact that Banks was no mere gilded patron of science, but 

 a genuine hardworking observer of nature who did not 

 confine his work to the lands visited, but was incessantly 

 occupied with the marine fauna and fiora of the high seas. 



The circumstances under which the fournal has at 

 length been publishei.1 after more than a century in one 

 limbo or another, are extremely interesting. At one stage 



