46 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



the naturalist — and future oceanographer — were also 

 recruited from the University of Edinburgh. 



It has been said that the " Challenger " expedition will 

 rank in history with the voyagesiof Vasco da Gama, Columbus, 

 Magellan, and Cook. Like these, it added new regions of 

 the globe to our knowledge, and the wide expanses thus 

 opened up for the first time — the floors of the oceans — were 

 vaster than the discoveries of any previous exploration. 



H.M.S. " Challenger " (Fig. 2, p. 57) was a spar-deck corvette 

 of 2,306 tons displacement, with auxihary engines of 1,234 

 indicated horse-power. She sailed in December, 1872, and 

 returned in May, 1876, and during these 3| years she traversed 

 about 69,000 miles in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and 

 penetrated as far south as the Antarctic ice barrier. Sound- 

 ings and dredgings or trawlings were taken at 362 stations, 

 and enormous collections, such as the scientific world had 

 never seen before, of marine organisms large and small, and of 

 samples of bottom deposits and of water from all depths and 

 all latitudes, were brought home for detailed investigation. 

 As Sir Ray Lankester has said : " Never did an expedition 

 cost so little and produce such momentous results for human 

 knowledge." A number of preliminary reports written 

 during the voyage were sent from the " Challenger " by 

 WjTV^ille Thomson, as Director, to the Hydrographer of the 

 Admiralty, and were published by the Royal Society in 

 1875 and 1876.^ Some were written by the Director himself, 

 others were reports to him by the other members of the 

 scientific staff. Thus, Moseley reported on the more remark- 

 able Hydroids and Corals discovered, Murray on the deep- 

 sea deposits and on the surface organisms, von Suhm on 

 some of the Crustacea and their larval forms, and Buchanan 

 on the physics and chemistry of the sea. All these prelimi- 

 nary reports are of interest even now to look over, and must 

 have been far more so nearly fifty years ago, when they 

 were published, as they gave the first glimpses of a world 

 1 See especially Proc. Boy. Soc, No. 170, 1876. 



