1895. RESULTS OF " CHALLENGER " EXPEDITION. 29 



acquainted well with its literature, able to draw his inferences on 

 the spot, and proceed from those inferences then and there to 

 intelligently directed, not hap-hazard, observation, inquiry, and 

 collection. 



C. B. Clarke. 



v.— ZOOLOGY. 



The greatest part of the innumerable discoveries with which the 

 " Challenger " Expedition has enriched zoology concerns the Benthos, 

 namely, those organisms which live fixed or creeping on the bottom 

 of the ocean. But not less remarkable or important are the dis- 

 coveries made on the Plankton, namely, those animals and plants 

 which are free-swimming or suspended on the surface of the ocean, 

 or at different depths {c.f. my " Plankton-Studien," i8go). With the 

 exception of the Deep-sea Keratosa, my own contributions to the 

 " Challenger " work concern the Plankton, and have proved that it is 

 just the smallest pelagic animals which possess the greatest import- 

 ance for oceanic life. As I wandered for ten years through this 

 wonderful new empire, populated by more than 4,000 species of 

 Radiolaria, for the most part previously unknown, and as I daily 

 admired the incredible variety and elegance of their delicate forms, I 

 had the happy and proud sensation of the explorer who is the first to 

 travel through a new continent peopled by thousands of new and 

 curious forms of animals and plants. 



It is now universally admitted that the celebrated voyage of the 

 " Challenger " is the most important and the most fruitful expedition 

 that has set out since the times of Columbus and Magellan. No 

 future expedition to elucidate the wonderful secrets of oceanic life can 

 produce an equal number of new facts and important discoveries. 

 The British nation may be proud to have executed this splendid 

 standard work, and to have given to oceanography a fixed base for 

 all future time. Many expeditions have been sent out for similar 

 purposes during the last century ; but no single one has reached 

 similar results. To a great extent this was the consequence of the 

 excellent preparation and the most practical equipment of the great 

 undertaking, also of that combination of favourable circumstances, 

 which we call " fortune." But it resulted far more, in my opinion, 

 from the excellent men, both in the naval staff and in the civihan 

 staff, who executed their great work with indefatigable energy and 

 with rare intelligence. First of all must here be celebrated Sir 

 Wyville Thomson, as the Director of the scientific staff, and after his 

 lamentable and premature death in 1882, his successor. Dr. John 

 Murray, who has proved himself " the right man in the right place." 



During the twelve years that I was engaged upon the 

 " Challenger " Report, I had to correct the proof of 3,000 pages of 

 letterpress, and of 230 lithographic plates, and I had to exchange 

 with Dr. Murray, as the Director and Editor of the whole work, 

 some hundred letters. Throughout this long time and this difficult 



