in the Twenty Years before 1895 63 



showed motion. Apart, however, from the motion, the white 

 gelatinous matter like coagulated albumen seemed to be 

 present. 



It was obvious that, if an organic body like albumen were 

 present all over the bottom of the sea, the water taken from 

 the bottom must necessarily contain enough of it to show 

 clear evidence of organic matter when evaporated to dryness. 

 Experiments which I made repeatedly in this direction gave 

 a negative result. 



As chemist of the expedition I looked at the matter from 

 a different point of view from that of the naturalists. The 

 nature of the experiments which I made and their result 

 are best given by quoting from my report to Professor Wyville 

 Thomson, which was published in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society l . 



If the jelly-like organism which had been seen by some eminent 

 naturalists in specimens of ocean bottoms and called Bathybius really- 

 formed, as was believed, an all-pervading organic covering of the sea- 

 bottom, it could hardly fail to show itself when the bottom water was 

 evaporated to dryness and the residue heated. In the numerous samples 

 of bottom water which I have so examined, there never was sufficient 

 organic matter to give more than a just perceptible greyish tinge to the 

 ithout any other signs of carbonisation or burning. Meantime. 

 my colleague. Mr Murray, who had been working according to the directions 

 by the discoverers of Bathybius, had actually observed a substance 



coagulated mucus,' which answered in every particular except the 

 want of motion to the description of the organism, and he found it in such 

 quantity that, if it were really of the supposed organic nature, it must 

 necessarily render the bottom water so rich in organic matter that it- 

 presence would be abundantly evident when the water was treated as 

 above described. 



"There remained then but one conclusion, namely that the body 

 Mr Murray had observed was not an organic body at all; and on 

 examining it and its mode of preparation, I determined it to be sulj 



:e, which had been eliminated from the sea-water, always present in 



iud, as an amorphous precipitate <>n the addition of spirits of \\nu . 

 The substance when analysed consisted of sulphuric acid and lime; and 

 when diss> : and the solution allowed to evaporate, it crystallised 



Report on chci n board H.M.S. 'Challei 



by J. Y. Buchanan, Proceedings of Royal Society (187*. iv. p. 603. 



and Paper No. 5 of Collected Scientific Papers, Cambridge, 1913. 



