WYVILLE THOMSON 45 



leading scientific men of the time, were so rapidly surpassed 

 and overshadowed by the still greater achievements of the 

 " Challenger " and other national exploring expeditions 

 that followed in the seventies and eighties of last century, 

 that there is some danger of their real importance being lost 

 sight of ; but it ought never to be forgotten that they first 

 demonstrated the abundance of life of a varied nature in 

 depths formerly supposed to be azoic, and, moreover, that 

 some of the deep-sea animals were related to extinct forms 

 belonging to Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary periods. 



Naturally Wyville Thomson, the young (then about forty) 

 and active originator and leading spirit of these new and 

 successful investigations, became a famous man. In 1869 

 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, and in 

 1870 he succeeded Allman as Professor of Natural History 

 in the University of Edinburgh, the post held by Forbes 

 some fifteen years before. Thomson was a fluent and lucid 

 lecturer, and a successful professor, greatly appreciated by 

 his many students. His classes at Edinburgh were amongst 

 the largest in the university, and were probably unequalled 

 in size by any classes of zoology elsewhere in the country. 

 Had time and strength permitted, he might have developed 

 a great school of Marine Biology in connection with his 

 university, but .larger schemes further afield almost imme- 

 diately claimed his attention. 



The undoubted success of the preliminary expeditions 

 in the " Lightning " and " Porcupine " encouraged Carpenter 

 and Wyville Thomson, again through the Council of the 

 Royal Society, to induce the Government to equip a deep- 

 sea expedition on a really grand scale to explore and make 

 known the conditions of life in the great oceans. This 

 resulted in the famous circumnavigating expedition in H.M.S. 

 *' Challenger," and Professor Wjrvrille Thomson as the chief 

 originator of the expedition was appointed director of the 

 civilian scientific staff on board. Two other members of 

 that staff, J. Y. Buchanan, the chemist, and John Murray, 



