CHAP. I.] THE EQUIPMENT OF THE SHIP. 81 
“2. The object of their lordships is to frame their instructions to the 
officer in command of the Challenger, so far as may be possible, to meet 
the recommendations of the President and Council of the Royal Soci- 
ety. Iam, sir, your obedient servant, 
“Vernon LusHrineton. 
“W.Sharpey, Esq., M.D., ete., 
“Secretary of the Royal Society, Burlington House.” 
The Report having been considered, was adopted as follows: 
The Circumnavigation Committee have had before them the letter 
from the Admiralty to the Royal Society, dated August 22d, 1872; and 
as the Council were not in session, and the matter was pressing, they 
have thought it best to treat the letter as having been referred to them 
by the Council. They beg leave to recommend to the Council that an 
answer be returned to the Admiralty to the following effect : 
The principal object of the proposed expedition is understood to be 
to investigate the physical and biological conditions of the great ocean- 
basins; and it is recommended for that purpose to pass down the coast 
of Portugal and Spain, to cross the Atlantic from Madeira to the West 
Indian Islands, to go to Bermuda, thence to the Azores, the Cape de 
Verde Islands, the Coast of South America, and across the South Atlan- 
tic to the Cape of Good Hope. Thence by the Marion Islands, the Cro- 
zets, and Kerguelen Land, to Australia and New Zealand, going south- 
ward en route, opposite the centre of the Indian Ocean, as near as may 
be with convenience and safety to the southern Ice-barrier. From New 
Zealand through the Coral Sea and Torres Straits, westward between 
Lombok and Bali, and thence through the Celebes and Sulu Seas to 
Manilla, then eastward into the Pacific, visiting New Guinea, New Brit- 
ain, the Solomon Islands; and afterward to Japan, where some consider- 
able time might be profitably spent. From Japan the course should be 
directed across the Pacific to Vancouver Island, then southerly through 
the eastern trough of the Pacific, and homeward round Cape Horn. 
This route will give an opportunity of examining many of the principal 
ocean phenomena, including the Gulf-stream and equatorial currents ; 
some of the biological conditions of the sea of the Antilles; the fauna 
of the deep water of the South Atlantic, which is as yet unknown, and 
the specially interesting fauna of the borders of the Antarctic Sea. Spe- 
cial attention shall be paid to the botany and zoology of the Marion Isl- 
ands, the Crozets, Kerguelen Land, and any new groups of islands which 
