CHAPTER III 



SIR C. WYVILLE THOMSON AND THE 

 - CHALLENGER " EXPEDITION 



It seems quite appropriate that the last chapter, dealing 

 with the life and work of the great Manx naturalist and early 

 oceanographer Professor Edward Forbes should be fol- 

 lowed by some account of the scientific career of that later 

 oceanographer Sir Wyville Thomson, whose name will go 

 down through the ages as the leader of the famous " Chal- 

 lenger " Deep-sea Exploring Expedition. There are many 

 links between these two men. Both were naturalists in 

 the widest sense, with an extensive knowledge of the natural 

 sciences and a great appreciation of nature in all its aspects. 

 Each occupied at the end of his life the Chair of Natural 

 History in the University of Edinburgh, though neither had 

 time to develop the great school of marine biology which 

 might have been expected from such men in such a place 

 had opportunity permitted. Forbes was only fifteen years 

 the senior, and was at the zenith of his fame — publishing 

 epoch-making views on the distribution of living things in 

 the sea — at the time when Thomson entered the University 

 of Edinburgh, and no doubt these views would arrest the 

 attention and guide the thoughts of any keen young student 

 of the natural sciences. It was Forbes who, on a basis of 

 observations which were then thought to be sufficient, but 

 are now known to be exceptional, placed the zero of life in 

 the sea at 300 fathoms or thereabouts, and it was Wyville 

 Thomson more than any man who proved that Forbes's views 

 were in this particular erroneous, and that many and varied 



37 



