FOREWORD XV 



oceans decreased steadily with depth or whether there were zones 

 of warmer water alternating with cold. 'The vast ocean lay 

 scientifically unexplored', said the Circumnavigation Committee 

 of the Royal Society when they approached the Admiralty with 

 a proposal that a world voyage should be made. 



Dr. Carpenter had already been in communication with their 

 Lordships and had done much groundwork so that things moved 

 swiftly, and in a very short time the Hydrographer of the Navy, 

 Admiral G. H. Richards, was vigorously under way with plans. 

 Captain G. S. Nares, a surveying officer of great experience, was 

 chosen to command the Challenger . As the Royal Society had 

 nominated Dr. Wyville Thomson to be the scientific leader of 

 the expedition these two worked in harmony from the start, 

 for they had sailed together in similar appointments on the most 

 recent oceanographic cruise to the Mediterranean in the surveying 

 vessel Shearwater. 



The sparse nautical figure of Captain Nares, with his neatly 

 pointed beard and high bald forehead, and that of his more portly 

 but active scientific companion were familiar enough in and 

 around the dockyard at Sheerness during the summer of 1872, 

 and the ship steadily took shape as the first British vessel ever to 

 be fitted out exclusively for oceanography. Her spars were re- 

 duced and all her guns except two were landed. This made room 

 for laboratories and workrooms, stores for thousands of fathoms 

 of dredging and sounding ropes, storage spaces for the almost 

 countless specimens which it was planned to collect, for the 

 spirits of wine which would be needed to preserve them, and 

 for the trawls, nets and dredges with which they would be 

 taken. 



By 6th December all was ready and the President and Council 

 of the Royal Society and the members of the Circumnavigation 

 Committee were invited to inspect the Challenger at Sheerness. 

 'A saloon carriage will be ordered to be in readiness to convey 

 them to that port by the 10.30 a.m. train from Victoria Station', 

 wrote the Secretary to the Admiralty. 



A few days later the ship sailed for Portsmouth, encountering 

 a great gale off the Kentish coast; in fact the scientists, who had 

 not yet found their sea legs, were landed by request in the Downs 

 and travelled by road to Portsmouth. 



