384 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



subsequent researches, and they exhibit an industry and 

 insight of a wholly remarkable character. His discoveries 

 were followed up by Torell, Pourtales, Agassiz, Wyville 

 Thomson, Carpenter, Gwyn Jeffreys and others, until the 

 Challenger Expedition became a necessity. This ex- 

 pedition and the publication of the fifty ma2;nificent v^olumes 

 of results are a monument of what the British Government 

 has done, and can do, for science. It is being so constantly 

 dinned into the ears of the tax-paying public that our 

 Government does nothing for science, but leaves its ad- 

 vancement almost solely to private enterprise and the 

 Universities, that national pride is apt to fall to zero in 

 the matter. National scientific institutions like the Royal 

 Navy, the British Museum, Greenwich Observatory, Kew 

 Gardens, are always with us in their pretended poverty, 

 and it is sionificant of our national habit of orumblino- that 

 Dr. John Murray in his preface to this concluding volume 

 of the Challenger Reports feels it a sacred duty to say 

 that : " The majority of the authors of the special memoirs 

 have spent years in the examination of the collections and 

 in the preparation of their manuscript and illustrations for 

 the press, without other remuneration than either a copy of 

 the Challenger publications or a small honorarium to cover 

 the outlay necessitated by their researches. The payments 

 to the Civilian Staff have been very moderate, and in my 

 own case, at least, have not covered actual expenditure in 

 connection with the work of the Expedition." He tells us 

 that, in 1889, the Treasury declined to ask Parliament to 

 renew the annual grant, and after correspondence in which 

 Dr. Murray offered " to finish the Report at my own 

 expense," the Government granted ^1,600 for the com- 

 pletion of the volumes, and somehow they have been 

 completed. Dr. Murray has happily survived these 

 privations, and appears in all respects as if they had 

 done him good. Moreover, it would have been a pity if 

 the Treasury had not been true to itself in the course of 

 this great undertaking. 



These final volumes contain besides the historical 

 sketch (the substance of which ought to be republished 



