8 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



July, 



world sets the very highest value on these volumes, and that, had it 

 suited the dignity of an Imperial Government to treat the work on a 

 commercial basis, instead of liberally presenting copies of it to 

 scientific institutions throughout the world, the publication could 

 have been made completely to pay its own expenses by sales. 



Sir Wyville Thomson, on the return of the Expedition in 1876, 

 was appointed to superintend the publication of the results, for which 

 an annual sum was voted by Parliament. It was arranged that the 

 Stationery Office should publish the work, and that all the collections, 

 after they had been reported on, should be deposited in the Natural 

 History Branch of the British Museum. Sir Wyville made some of 

 the arrangements as to the distribution of the collections to experts 

 for report, and decided upon the general form and style of the 

 volumes to be issued ; but his health broke down soon after his return 

 home, and in 1882 he died. Suhm had died on the voyage, and eight 

 years later another of the naturalists, Moseley, was taken from us, so 

 that only John Murray and Buchanan now remain of the civilian 

 staff of the " Challenger " Expedition. 



On the death of Sir Wyville Thomson, Mr. John Murray was 

 appointed to take his place as director of the collections and editor of 

 the Report. It is not too much to say that it was a rare good 

 fortune for science, and for the reputation of the " Challenger " 

 Expedition, that a man who has proved to be so peculiarly fitted for 

 the work which had to be done was at hand. The feat that Mr. John 

 Murray (now " doctor " of many universities) has performed is 

 remarkable on the mere face of it. He has, with the aid of a well- 

 chosen staff, sorted and sent out to specialists in all parts of the. 

 world the treasures brought home by the " Challenger " ; he has 

 obtained from those specialists, whose zeal and promptitude is worthy 

 of grateful recognition, richly illustrated reports of the highest value ; 

 and he has seen these through the press and issued them, together 

 with a general Narrative and a Summary of the results, in fifty thick 

 quarto volumes. The collections have been returned and safely 

 deposited in the British Museum. To have obtained such a result 

 within twenty years after the return of the expedition is evidence of 

 unflagging energy, industry, and tact on the part of the director and 

 editor. But this is not all ; for Dr. John Murray has throughout 

 these twenty years kept his mind bent on the great general problems 

 to the solution of which all this work tends. He has himself, in 

 conjunction with Professor Renard, written one of the most important 

 and original of the reports, that on Deep-Sea Deposits — and now has 

 crowned the period of his labours with a marvellous index-summary 

 of results preceded by the best historical account of the rise and pro- 

 gress of the science of Oceanography which exists, and followed by 

 an extremely important essay containing far-reaching generalisations 

 relative to the history of the earth's surface of land and water, entitled 

 " General Remarks on the Distribution of Marine Organisms." 



