PRELIMINARY REPORT. 3 
depths passing to 860, 1257, 1762, and the greatest depth being 2267 
fathoms, then 2247, and rising more rapidly near Makatea to 581 fathoms. 
Between Makatea and Tahiti we made eight soundings, beginning with 
1363 fathoms, two miles off the southern end of Makatea, passing to 2238, 
2363 (the greatest depth on that line), to 2224, 1930, 1585, 775, and finally 
867 fathoms off Point Venus. 
These make in all seventy-two soundings from our first station to Point 
Venus. : 
The deep basin developed by our soundings between lat. 24° 30’ N., and 
lat. 6° 25’ S., varying in depth from nearly 3100 fathoms to a little less 
than 2500 fathoms, is probably the western extension of a deep basin 
indicated by two soundings on the charts,‘ to the eastward of our line, 
in longitudes 125° and 120° W., and latitudes 9° and 11° N., one of over 
3100 fathoms, the other of more than 2550 fathoms, showing this part of 
the Pacific to be of considerable depth and to form a uniformly deep basin 
of great extent, continuing westward probably, judging from the soundings, 
for a long distance. 
I would propose, in accordance with the practice adopted for naming 
such well-defined basins of the ocean, that this large depression of the 
Central Pacific, extending for nearly thirty degrees of latitude, be named 
Moser Basin. 
In naming the “ Moser” Basin I am following the practice adopted by 
the “ Challenger” and Coast Survey, of naming after naval officers or the 
ships they commanded prominent hydrographic features. Dr. Neumayer 
in 1882, in the Atlas of the Atlantic Ocean issued by the German Marine 
Observatory, was the first to object to this system of nomenclature, on the 
ground of the confusion likely to arise from the adoption of personal 
names when applied to ridges, basins, deeps, and plateaus in the different 
Oceanic realms. He proposed a strictly geographical nomenclature, which 
ignored the personal names given in the earlier bathymetrical charts ; 
and the same principle was carried out in the Atlas of the Indian and 
Pacific Oceans subsequently published by the German Marine Observatory. 
Finally, Professor Supan, in his article on “ Die Bodenform des Welt- 
1 H. O. Chart, No. 527. 
