236 



KNOWLEDGE 



[OCTOBEB 1, 1895. 



of the physical and biological conditions in each of the 

 great divisions of the hydrosphere, working, of course, with 

 all possible accuracy and detail, yet striving chiefly towards 

 a delineation of the leading features. Given an accurate 

 outline of the whole, more minute studies of restricted areas 

 might follow later, and it would then be easy to place them 

 in their proper positions with regard to the whole. This 

 idea commended itself strongly to the Royal Society, and to 

 many other scientific bodies, and influence was brought to 

 bear upon the Government, with the result that in 

 1872, H.M.S. C/ialh-ni/er, a corvette of 2806 tons, was 

 completely fitted out and furnished with every scientific 

 appliance for examining the sea from surface to bottom. 

 The ship was in charge of Captain Nares, with a naval 

 surveying staff, and a civilian scientific staff under the 

 direction of Professor Wyville Thomson ; the latter 

 consisting of Messrs. H. N. Moseley, John Murray, J. Y. 

 Buchanan, E. von Willemoes-Suhm, and J. J. Wild. The 

 ChalUnger sailed from Sheerness at eleven a.m. on Saturday, 

 7th December, 1872, and after a voyage touching Madeira, 

 the Canaries, the West Indies, Nova Scotia, the Bermudas, 

 the Azores, Cape Verde, Fernando Noronha, Bahia, Tristan 

 d'Acunha, the Cape, Kerguelen, Australia, Hong Kong, 

 -Japan, Valparaiso, Straits of Magellan, and Vigo, she 

 anchored at Spithead at half-past nine on the evening of 

 Wednesday, May 24th, 1876 ; having in three and a half 

 years cruised over nearly seventy thousand nautical mUes, 

 and made soundings and observations at three hundred and 

 sixty-two stations, besides keeping constant magnetic and 

 meteorological observations during the whole period. If 

 we bear in mind that the ChMengcr was commissioned to 

 explore the sea and not the land, and that her appointed 

 task was amply sufficient to occupy all hands, we must be 

 surprised at tlae use that was made of opportunities on 

 shore. Lord George Campbell's " Log-letters from the 

 ChaUenyer " is full of interesting observations of men and 

 things in various countries — much of it reads like an 

 extract from the last century voyages, and Prof. Moseley's 

 " Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger " contains many 

 important contributions to anthropology, notably an essay 

 on the gods of Hawaii and their transformation into orna- 

 ments, and an account of the inhabitants of the Admiralty 

 Islands. The anthropological collections, now in part 

 deposited m the Pitt-Rivers Museum at O.xford, are admitted 

 to be of the greatest value, and in the hands of Prof. Sir 

 William Turner the skeletons and crania obtained by the 

 expedition brought to light new facts of the greatest 

 ethnological interest. 



But when we come to the oceanic researches, we find 

 a wealth of material simply bewildering. Immense 

 collections of zoological and other specimens were sent 

 home by the C/itdleui/er from various ports visited, and 

 she herself returned to England laden like an ocean 

 " tramp." A commission was organized and charged with 

 the work of superintending and directing the examination 

 of the collections, the discussion of the observations, and 

 the publication of reports. The commission was under 

 the command of Su- C. Wyville Thomson until his death 

 in 1882, when he was succeeded by Dr. .John Murray, 

 who continued the work in consultation with a committee 

 of the Royal Society, and has now brought it to completion. 

 Some six or seven years after Dr. Murray became director 

 of the " C/i"//«»'/('r Expedition Commission " the Treasury, 

 alarmed by the deceitfulness of the scientific riches 

 accumulated, threatened to cut off supphes altogether. 

 Fortunately, the threat was not executed, although the 

 last payment of £1600 had to be spun out over six years. 



The completed Report extends over fifty volumes, in 

 royal quarto, each having an average allowance of six 



hundred pages and sixty plates and maps. The work is 

 arranged in six divisions : I. Narrative ; II. Physics and 

 Chemistry, including Meteorology ; III. Deep Sea Deposits; 

 IV. Botany ; V. Zoology ; VI. Summary of Scientific 

 Results. Division I. is naturally the work of the members 

 of the expedition, and Division VI. entirely from the pen 

 of Dr. John Murray. In the others the specimens and 

 records were distributed amongst specialists for examination 

 and discussion, or, where such did not exist, to scientific 

 men who would make themselves authorities in the new 

 subjects. In the selection of authors no distinction of 

 nationality was made, the sole aim being always to find 

 the best man for the work, and we may here add our 

 congratulations to Dr. Murray on the achievement of this 

 great task, for he has made the C/i((?/ch^«c Expedition, not 

 only the foundation of the greatest work of its kind in 

 existence, but the source of a stimulus to many branches 

 of scientific research, which will not cease to be felt for 

 many years to come. 



Any attempt to give even an idea of the contents of a 

 work twice the size of the " Encyclopajdia Britannica " 

 within the limits of a single article must necessarily fail. 

 Dr, Murray's Summary, intended as a guide to the 

 wanderer through the volumes of the Report, itself 

 occupies over twelve hundred pages ; so we must content 

 ourselves with a mere glance here and there. 



The first great service rendered to science by the 

 ChiUenger observations was the collection of sufficient 

 deep-sea soundings to make it possible to construct relief 

 maps of the great oceans. Although these are still very 

 defective in many parts, even where supplemented by 

 more recent data, they enabled us to form a fair conception 

 of the shape of the sea bottom, with its towering volcanic 

 peaks, its boundless undulating plains, and its profound 

 abysses. Dr. Murray has himself made a specialty of 

 this part of the work, and computes the total area of all 

 the oceans at 137,200,000 square miles, and the total 

 volume at 323,800,000 cubic miles ; the average depth 

 being 2080 fathoms, equal to 12,180 feet, or something 

 over two miles and a quarter. Amongst other things, the 

 rhallcnijer finally disposed of the fabulous depths reported 

 by several investigators. The deepest sounding made was 

 4475 fathoms, or about five miles, near the Mariana 

 Islands, and we have since found no reason to suppose that 

 depths greatly exceeding this will be met with anywhere. 



The nature of the sea bottom forms the subject of an 

 exhaustive monograph by the Abbe Eenard and Dr. 

 Murray. The composition and, above all, the origin of 

 the great deep-sea deposits have presented many problems 

 of the highest order of difficulty alike to the geologist, the 

 biologist, and the chemist, but a general classification has 

 nevertheless been arrived at, the distribution of the chief 

 deposits has been mapped, and their origin explained. 

 Dr. Murray finds that outside a belt three hundred miles 

 from land practically the whole ocean is covered with 

 " pelagic" deposits, in the formation of which land influences 

 have played little or no part. In truly oceanic areas where 

 the depth is less than 1700 fathoms (say two miles) 

 the bottom is usually covered with " Pteropod ooze," 

 so called from the shells which are characteristic of it. 

 Beyond this depth the dehcate shells disappear, and there 

 remains the chalky-looking foraminiferoua ooze known as 

 " globigerina." Below 3000 fathoms the deposit consists 

 of substances wholly insoluble in sea-water, forming a red 

 clay chiefly volcanic, which covers over fifty millions of 

 square miles, not much less than the whole laud surface 

 of the globe. It is remarkable, as showing the extremely 

 slow rate at which the red clay is deposited, that along 

 with it immense numbers of sharks' teeth, some of them 



