3i6 NATURE AND MAN. 



XI. 



THE DEEP SEA AND ITS CONTENTS. 



^Nineteenth Century, April, i8So.] 



When, in June 1871, I placed before Mr. Goschen, then First 

 Lord of the Admiralty, the scheme I had formed for a Scientific 

 Circumnavigation Expedition, I stated as its general object " the 

 " extension to the three great oceanic areas — the Atlantic, the 

 " Indian and Southern, and the Pacific— of the physical and 

 '' biological exploration of the Deep Sea, which has been ten- 

 "tatively prosecuted by my colleagues and myself, during a few 

 " months of each of the last three years, on the eastern margin of 

 " the North Atlantic, and in the neighbouring portion of the 

 " Mediterranean." Those researches had been regarded by the 

 scientific public — not of this country only, but of the whole 

 civilized world — as of extraordinary interest ; not only for the new 

 facts that they had brought into view and the old fallacies which 

 they had exploded, but for the new ideas they had introduced 

 into various departments of scientific thought. And I felt myself 

 justified in expressing the confident belief '* that the wider exten- 

 ' sion and systematic prosecution of them will be fruitful in such 

 'a rich harvest of discovery as has been rarely reaped in any 

 ' scientific inquiry." 



The " Challenger Expedition," thus originated, was fitted out 

 in the most complete manner, everything being done which skill 

 and experience could suggest to make it a complete success. A 

 ship was selected whose size and construction rendered her 



