332 APPENDIX 



Council of the British Association to appoint a Committee 

 to take the necessary steps to impress this need upon His 

 Majesty's Government and the nation. 



This resolution was supported by the Committees of all the 

 other Sections of the Association interested in such an explora- 

 tion. The Committee of Recommendations and the General 

 Committee on the following day passed a resolution " pointing out 

 the importance of urging the initiation of a national expedition 

 for the exploration of the ocean, and requesting that the Council 

 of the British Association should take the necessary steps to 

 impress this need upon His Majesty's Government and the nation." 

 The Council of the Association thereupon appointed a Committee, 

 representative of all the departments of science concerned, to 

 prepare and take steps for the presentation of the present state- 

 ment ; while, following upon a reference from the Association, 

 the Council of the Royal Society also appointed a Committee to 

 confer with that appointed by the Council of the Association. 



Many men of science, both British and foreign, wrote expressing 

 the hope that the cogent scientific reasons for the expedition may 

 be pressed without delay upon the Government, so as to induce 

 the nation to undertake this great enterprise. 



II 



" Challenger " Expedition 



The " Challenger " expedition, the great British circumnaviga- 

 ting and deep-sea exploring expedition under Sir George Nares 

 and Sir Wyville Thomson in 1872-76, brought back collections 

 and results unrivalled either before or since, which added 

 enormously to our scientific and practical knowledge of the oceans. 

 Our knowledge of the science of the sea, however, has undergone 

 great changes during the last half-century. Physics, Chemistry, 

 Geology, Zoology, Botany, Physiology, and Geography all have 

 problems awaiting solution, ^ and there are many modern methods 

 of investigation of the ocean depths which have been devised or 

 improved since the days of the " Challenger." All civilized 

 nations of the world have contributed by means of expeditions 

 during the last quarter-century to the advance of oceanography, 



^ See schedule appended (p. 334, for a summary of the proposed 

 investigations. 



