DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPEDITION. 9 
from Kerguelen to Cocos-Keeling, Sumatra, Nicobar, Ceylon, South Maldives, Chagos, 
Seychelles, and Zanzibar, while the ‘ Investigator’s’ work was confined to the Indian 
slopes. Little, however, had become known about the geology, fauna, and flora of the 
islands. To the east Cocos-Keeling had been re-examined by Guppy, and Christmas 
Island opened up to us by the liberality of Sir John Murray. Since Moebius’s and 
Balfour’s visits, in connection with the Transit of Venus Expeditions in 1875, our 
knowledge of the Mascarene Islands, Mauritius, and Rodriguez and Reunion had 
scarcely increased. Of the remaining great mass of islands and reefs between Mada- 
gascar, South Africa, and India we knew hardly more in 1905 than we did in 1875, 
excepting only the Seychelles, where steady work had been done. We ourselves, in 
1899 and 1900, followed by Prof. Alexander Agassiz in 1901, carried our knowledge to 
some degree southwards from Minikoi, the most southward of the Laccadives, to the 
south of the Maldives; but of the Great Chagos Archipelago, for example, we had 
practically no information beyond that to be found in the Admiralty Sailing Directions 
and a short paper by G. C. Bourne on Diego Garcia *. 
Indeed, of all cceanic areas none seemed so little known in 1905 as that between 
India and Madagascar, while to the oceanographer and to the more specialised students 
of coral-reefs and of problems of distribution none seemed more urgently to demand 
investigation. We have his own authority for saying that over twenty-five years ago 
the late Dr. W. T. Blanford applied for such an investigation as that of H.M.S. Sealark 
in 1905 to enable him to arrive at a clearer comprehension of the various geological and 
biological problems which met him at every turn of his work in India. His view of 
the importance of such an investigation is clearly indicated later on in his Presidential 
Address to the Geological Society in 1890. He expected discoveries along that line 
which would show more definitely the former union of India and 8. Africa, expectations 
shared by the great majority of geologists and biologists who had to deal with those 
lands. While Gardiner, as his chart shows +, did not expect the existence of any line 
of shallower water between these two lands, he required a similar investigation for 
the completion of his work and for the solution of many other obscure problems. 
It was, moreover, pointed out to him by many friends that it was clearly his duty to 
endeavour to carry his investigations still further to tne south, and to attempt to test 
more fully his views on many points. A circular letter, accompanied by a scheme of a 
proposed expedition, met with such a flattering response that early in 1904 he decided 
to petition the Royal Society to take up the question of such an expedition. We were 
happy in that the Royal Society endorsed the scheme, and decided to approach the 
Government on the matter. We had hopes that the Government of India, like the 
Government of the Dutch East Indies in the case of the ‘Siboga’ Expedition, might 
have seen its way to undertake to give us the assistance we required for our plans, but 
it was the Admiralty that finally decided to place a vessel during six months of the 
summer of 1905 at the disposal of the senior of us for the work. ‘This decision we 
could not regard but with feelings of great satisfaction, since it was with the Admiralty 
* Proc. R.S. vol. xliii. pp. 440-61 (1888). 
+ ‘Fauna and Geography. Maldives and Laccadives,’ p. 14. 
SECOND SERIES.—ZOOLOGY, VOL. XII. 3 
