86 



NATURE 



\yune I, 1876 



went on dredging at depths of from 700 to 800 feet, finding 

 an abundance of animal life. In the meanwhile the elder 

 Sars, knowing that Wyville Thomson was working on the 

 subject, sent him word of his son's discovery, of the sig- 

 nificance of which he was still in doubt, and invited him 

 to Ciiristiania to see the specimen. He went, and on 

 going over the matter together they came to the conclu- 

 sion that the new Lily Star seemed to be closely related 

 to a genus called Bourgtieticrmus, a well-known fossil, 

 and was consequently a degraded form of the family 

 Apiocrinidae. This was a startling discovery ; it seemed 

 now almost certain that there had been found not only a 

 living representative of a long lost group, but a form that 

 might be regarded as having lived on from the great 

 Chalk epoch even into ours. In the train of thought thus 

 excited, we think we see the material for speculation, 

 then a fixed determination to prove — is this speculation 

 true.? then the trial trip in ih^ Lightning, i)\Q more ex- 

 tended survey in the Porcupitie, and lastly, all the bril- 

 liant results of the most remarkable voyage of discovery 

 ever made, in the Challenger. It is not right to antici- 

 pate, and in pursuing our sketch we must not forget 

 to mention that in i860 Dr. Dickie, who was then a 

 colleague of Wyville Thomson's as Professor of Natural 

 History in the Queen's College, Belfast, was appointed to 

 the Chair of Botany at Aberdeen, and at first temporarily 

 and afterwards permanently, Wyville Thomson lectured 

 on zoology and botany, becoming thus in very deed Pro- 

 fessor of Natural History in the Queen's College, Belfast. 



Prof. Wyville Thomson was, however, something besides 

 a mere enthusiastic biologist ; he was not merely content 

 with rapidly increasing the zoological treasures of the 

 Queen's College Museum ; he did more. By interesting 

 himself not only in what concerned the working of the Col- 

 lege, but even in the welfare of the town in which it was 

 located, he soon gathered round him a host of intelligent 

 and warm-hearted friends. In social life it was but an 

 accident that would reveal the Biologist, and one wit- 

 nessed only the general culture and the artistic taste of 

 a well-bred man. On one occasion of great moment in 

 the history of the Queen's University in Ireland, Wyville 

 Thomson's influence was felt, as we believe, for good. 

 In 1866 a Supplemental Charter was given by the then 

 Government to the Queen's University to enable it to 

 confer degrees on students who might come up from any 

 College that might be recognised as such by the Senate 

 of the Queen's University. It seems hard to believe that 

 such a charter should have been granted, for it might 

 have given to any large school a position of equality to 

 the three Queen's Colleges, and so have practically de- 

 stroyed all middle-class education in Ireland. Wyville 

 Thomson saw that the interests of education were at stake, 

 and with commendable promptness and immense energy 

 he initiated the formation of a committee and the collec- 

 tion of a sum of several thousands of pounds to try the 

 validity of the new Charter in a court of law. In this the 

 committee were successful, for the Charter was rendered 

 inoperative by an injunction granted in 1 867, after long 

 and protracted arguments, by the then Master of the 

 Rolls in Ireland. 



Wyville Thomson was vice-president of the jury on 

 raw products at the Paris Exhibition in 1867; he took the 

 lead in organising the very flourishing School of Art in 



Belfast under the Science and Art Department, and was 

 the first chairman of the Board of Directors. He is a 

 Conservative in politics, and a magistrate and Commis- 

 sioner of Supply for the county of Linlithgow. 



In 1868 Dr. Carpenter, at that time one of the 

 vice-presidents of the Royal Society, paid Prof. Wyville 

 Thomson a visit in order that they might work out to- 

 gether the structure and development of the Crinoids. 

 As the friends discoursed about these Lily stars, Wyville 

 Thomson told Carpenter of his own firm conviction 

 that the land of promise for the naturalist, indeed the 

 only remaining region where there were endless novelties 

 of most extraordinary interest, was the bottom of the 

 deep sea ; here were treasures ready to the hand which 

 had the means of gathering them, and he urged him to 

 use his influence at head-quarters in London to induce 

 the Admiralty to lend to science, for a time, some small 

 vessel properly fitted with dredging gear and the other 

 necessary scientific apparatus, so as to definitely settle all 

 these weighty questions. The Admiralty gave their sanc- 

 tion to the use of a Government vessel for the investi- 

 gation, and the surveying ship Lightning left Oban for 

 a cruise in the North Atlantic Ocean in August, 1868, 

 returning to Oban by the end of Septembei". For an ac- 

 count of this cruise we must refer to the " Depths of the 

 Sea." The results of the Lightning expedition were fairly 

 satisfactory. It was shown beyond question that animal 

 life was varied and abundant at depths in the ocean down 

 to between 600 and 700 fathoms ; and it had been deter- 

 mined that great masses of water at different tempera- 

 tures were moving about, each in its particular course ; 

 and, further, it had been shown that many of the deep- 

 sea forms of life were closely related to fossils of the 

 Tertiary and Chalk periods. 



In 1869 the Admiralty once again acceded to the re- 

 quest of the Royal Society, and assigned the surveying 

 vessel Porcupine for a survey to extend from May to 

 September, 1869. The 1869 survey divides itself into 

 three sections; the first when the Porcupine surveyed off 

 the west coast of Ireland, Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys being in 

 scientific charge ; the second in the Bay of Biscay, in 

 charge of Wyville Thomson ; and the third, in which 

 the track of the Lightning was carefully worked over, 

 and all previous observations were duly checked. 



Once again, in 1870, the Admiralty placed the Porcti- 

 pine at the disposal of the Royal Society, and it was 

 arranged that the year's expedition should be divided as 

 in 1869, into cruises. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys was to undertake 

 the scientific direction of the first cruise from Falmouth 

 to Gibraltar, and Wyville Thomson and Dr. Carpenter 

 were to relieve him at Gibraltar, and to superintend the 

 survey of ^the Mediterranean. Unfortunately a severe 

 attack of fever prevented Wyville Thomson from joining 

 the Porcupine at Gibraltar, and Dr. Carpenter took charge 

 of the scientific arrangements. 



In 1869 Wyville Thomson was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society. 



In 1870 Dr. Allman resigned the Professorship of 

 Natural History in the University of Edinburgh. Wyville 

 Thomson was a candidate for the vacant chair, and amid 

 the hearty congratulations of all men of science he was 

 elected, vacating the chair in the Queen's College, Belfast, 

 to which Dr. Cunningham was appointed. 



