3IO 



NATURE 



[November 3, 192 1 



Wyville Thomson succeeded Allman as pro- 

 fessor of natural history in Edinburgh in 1870, 

 and from that time Edinburgh became the active 

 centre of deep-sea exploration. The undoubted 

 success of the preliminary expeditions in the Light- 

 ning and Porcupine encouraged Carpenter and 

 Thomson, again through the council of the Royal 

 Society, in co-operation with a committee of the 

 Council of the British Association, to induce the 

 Government to equip a deep-sea expedition on a 

 really grand scale to explore the conditions of life 

 in the great oceans. This resulted in the famous 

 circumnavigating expedition of the Challenger, 

 with Sir Wyville Thomson as director of the scien- 

 tific statf. On that staff were also two other Edin- 

 burgh men, J. Y. Buchanan, the chemist, and 

 John Murray. 



The Challenger sailed in December, 1872, and 

 returned in May, 1876, and during that three and 

 a half years traversed 70,000 miles of sea, dredg- 

 ing or trawling at 362 stations, and bringing back 

 enormous collections, such as the scientific world 

 had never seen. It is impossible in a few minutes 

 to give any adequate idea of the discoveries of 

 the Challenger expedition. Never did an expedi- 

 tion, which cost so little, produce such momentous 

 results for human knowledge, and Edinburgh may 

 fairly claim a share of the glory reflected from the 

 expedition led by her famous Regius professor of 

 natural history. 



All naturalists know how great were the addi- 

 tions to the scientific knowledge of the oceans 

 and their inhabitants made either during the 

 voyage or later in the working out of the -collec- 

 tions, which was carried on during the following 

 twenty years, to a very large extent in Edinburgh, 

 partly in the Challenger office in Queen Street, 

 and partly in some of the laboratories of the uni- 

 versity. 



Sir Wyville Thomson did not live to see the 

 results of his great expedition worked out and 

 published. Soon after the return home his health 

 broke, and he died in 1882. During the last years 

 of his life Thomson arranged for two supple- 

 mentary expeditions under Murray and Tizard to 

 explore the Faroe Channel between the north of 

 Scotland and the Faroe Isles. All three of our 

 pioneers are connected with this region. Forbes 

 long ago, in 1850, pointed out that it ought to be 

 explored, as on the boundary of two faunas, the 

 Arctic and the Atlantic, Thomson, in the Porcu- 

 pine, discovered "cold" and "warm" areas at 

 the bottom only an hour's sail apart and differing 

 by 15° F. ; and from Challenger temperature ob- 

 servations in the Pacific, etc., he predicted that 

 a barrier would be found rising to 200 or 300 

 fathoms. Hence the Knight-Errant and Triton 

 expeditions, in which Murray and Tizard dis- 

 covered the " Wyville-Thomson " ridge separating 

 cold Arctic water from warmer Atlantic. 



For a quarter of a century after the Challenger 

 expedition Edinburgh was the chief centre of 

 oceanographic research, and the Mecca towards 

 which marine biologists from all over the w^orld 



NO. 2714, VOL. 108] 



turned to inspect the novelties of the wonderful col- 

 lections and to discuss results, and in all this work 

 many well-known Edinburgh men of science — 

 Turner, lait, Crum Brown, Geikie, Chrystal, 

 Buchan, and others — played a leading part — out- 

 side the biological group of workers at the Chal- 

 lenger office. 



After Sir Wyville Thomson's death it was for- 

 tunate for science and for the continuance of the 

 influence of Edinburgh upon oceanographic re- 

 search that Dr. John Murray, who had been chief 

 assistant at the Challenger office since the return 

 of the expedition, was able and willing to take up 

 the directorship and bring the whole work to a 

 most successful issue twenty years later. These 

 two Scots share the honour of having guided the 

 destinies of what is still the greatest oceanic ex- 

 ploration. 



John Murray, though born in Canada, was of 

 Scottish descent, and came as a boy to Scotland 

 to complete his education. He also started as a 

 student of medicine at the University of Edin- 

 burgh, and, again like his two forerunners, gave 

 up medicine for science, and left without gradu- 

 ating. His first oceanographic expedition was to 

 Spitsbergen and other parts of the Arctic regions 

 on board a Peterhead whaler, on w^hich, on the 

 strength of having been once a medical student, 

 he was shipped as surgeon. It was only an odd 

 chance that led to Murray's connection with the 

 Challenger. The scientific staff had already been 

 definitely appointed when at the last moment one 

 of the assistant naturalists dropped out, and on 

 the recommendation of Prof. Tait, Murray was 

 offered the vacant post. 



On the expedition Murray devoted special atten- 

 tion to coral reefs, bottom deposits, and plankton, 

 all of which have led to important results. 



Murray's investigation of deposits led, more- 

 over, to one of the romances of science when he 

 discovered and exploited a very valuable phos- 

 phatic deposit on Christmas Island in the Indian 

 Ocean. He was able to show, -after some years^ 

 working of the deposit, that the British Treasury 

 had received in taxes and royalties considerably 

 more than the total cost of the Challenger expedi- 

 tion. Even in his busiest years at the Challenger 

 office Murray never gave up work at sea. In his 

 little yacht. Medusa (38 tons), between 1884 and 

 1892 he explored the sea-lochs of the west of 

 Scotland, made great collections and many ob- 

 servations, and found " Boreal outliers " in Loch 

 Etlve and Upper Loch Fyne. 



It is curious that Edinburgh, so favour- 

 ably situated on the Firth of Forth, and 

 provided with such a succession of eminent 

 professors as her university has had since 

 the days of Jameson, has never had a permanent 

 marine biological station. Murray at least made 

 an attempt. In 1884 he acquired Granton quarry 

 and moored in it the Ark with biological and 

 chemical laboratories. Murray and Irvine carried 

 on chemical work while the Ark was at Granton 

 on the secretion of carbonate of lime, -on the solu- 



