JOHN MURRAY 77 



and wherever Murray was he was apt sooner or later to bring 

 a discussion round to some fundamental problem of the ocean 

 or the deposits forming on its floor, or to illustrate an argu- 

 ment by something he once saw in the Pacific, or the Ant- 

 arctic — or elsewhere. And, moreover, on the tops of these 

 ancient mountains of Scotland we could, and did, consider the 

 changes of continents and the supposed 'permanence of ocean 

 basins. I, for one, then came to realize that geology has 

 a close bearing on oceanography ; and I suspect that it 

 was on occasions like these, in keen discussion with geologists 

 and chemists, that Murray formulated some of the theories 

 as to past history of land and sea that he afterwards published 

 in the Summary volumes of the "Challenger " series. 



Murray's first paper on his theory of coral reefs was read 

 before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on April 5, 1880, 

 and was pubHshed in the Proceedings, vol. x., p. 505. I well 

 remember the occasion, and also the rehearsal which took 

 place some days before in Sir Wyi^ille Thomson's house of 

 Bonsyde, when Murray read his MS. to a small but highly 

 critical audience, consisting of Sir Wyville Thomson, Sir 

 William Turner, and myself. For months before I had daily 

 seen Murray preparing the paper in a large room at the 

 " Challenger " Office, sitting at his notes in the centre of a 

 multitude of charts showing all the reefs and coral islands of 

 tropical seas — some of the charts spread out on tables, others 

 carpeting the fioor or stacked in piles and rolls — while he 

 measured and drew sections of the contours so as to see which 

 reefs supported his views and which presented difficulties. 

 His coral-reef theory was a direct outcome of his " Challenger " 

 work. The soundings had revealed the presence of volcanic 

 elevations, and the distribution of the calcareous deposits 

 showed how these might contribute to build up suitable plat- 

 forms as the foundation of reefs which might grow to the 

 surface independent of all sunken lands such as Darwin's 

 theory had required. It may be said that Murray demolished 

 the supposed need of vast oceanic subsidence, which had been 



