206 
NAT OLE 
[Fuly 2, 1885 
ever prevailed upon to sanction such expenditure, even 
though with the prospect of charging a high price. The 
book is in two parts, each of which forms a thick, 
heavy quarto of more than 500 pages. It contains 14 
chromo-lithographic plates, giving illustrations of deep-sea 
deposits, Antarctic icebergs, and various aborigines and 
their handiwork ; 35 photographic plates, among which the 
glaciated pavement at Halifax,the lava-cascade at Kilauea, 
and some of the representations of growing vegetation are 
particularly good; 43 charts of the route of the voyage 
and of stations visited, including a large and valuable 
physical chart of the world on which all the newest infor- 
mation as to ocean depths is given, together with the 
track of the Challenger and the nature of the bottom 
observed in the different soundings; 22 diagrams 
showing the vertical distribution of temperature in the 
ocean, and embodying in a graphic and intelligible form 
a vast amount of detail regarding this fascinating subject ; 
340 woodcuts, including many illustrations of the more 
novel or interesting natural history “ finds” of the voyage, 
and some of them remarkable for the exquisite beauty and 
fidelity with which they have been executed ; and, lastly, 
which will surprise the reader accustomed only to the 
prosaic solidity of Government publications, there are 
tail-pieces to the several chapters—mermaids filling the 
tow-net for the naturalists above, scenes from the life of 
the cruise on deck and on shore, and little bits of fancy 
thatremind one sometimes of Edward Forbes. 
The general scope of this “narrative” was sketched out 
by Sir Wyville Thomson, and in his preface to the first 
volume of the “Zoological Reports” he referred to it as 
actually in progress. He died, however, before he had 
made any progress with it, the world losing in him the 
enthusiastic and kindly spirit that planned the whole 
expedition, saw it successfully completed, and organized 
the systematic working out of its collections. Since his 
lamented death the work has been vigorously prosecuted 
by his successor in the editorial supervision of the Reports, 
Mr. John Murray, who, in conjunction with Staff Com- 
mander Tizard, Professor Moseley, and Mr. J. Y. 
Buchanan, and with the co-operation of the various 
specialists employed, has compiled this voluminous 
“ Narrative of the Cruise.” 
The general plan of the work may be briefly stated. The 
leading idea of the writers has been to give a chrono- 
logical account of the voyage from beginning to end, 
recording at each station any remarkable observation 
there made. inserting here and there, where they could be 
most appropriately given, abstracts of the general results 
arrived at up to the present time by the various experts 
to whom different portions of the vast collections made 
during the cruise have been entrusted, and describing 
fully the various equipments of the Chad/enger for the 
scientific work for which the expedition was designed. 
Some of these features of the book have, of course, 
already become more or Jess familiar from the publications 
of Sir Wyville Thomson himself, and of Professor Moseley, 
Lord George Campbell, Mr. Wild, and others. But they 
have never been presented so fully nor illustrated so amply. 
Unfortunately all the scientific work connected with the 
expedition is not yet completed, so that it was not 
possible to give in the “ Narrative” a summary of the whole 
results achieved. But as far as the work had advanced 
up to the time of its publication, the volume now issued 
contains a digest of it, prepared by the various specialists 
by whom it has been accomplished. When the whole 
Challenger results have been published, we hope that in a 
future edition of the “ Narrative,” a conspectus of the 
entire work of the expedition may be completely given. 
The introductory chapter presents an outline of the 
history of research in the ocean. This is followed by a 
detailed account of the fittings of H.M.S. Challenger, 
which will be useful as a record of the state of deep-sea 
investigation in 1872. The proper narrative then begins 
with the departure from Portsmouth, the various trials of 
the apparatus and training of the crew inthe kind of work 
which was to be prosecuted during the cruise, and a full 
description of the instruments employed and the methods 
of observation with them. This, though to most readers 
rather a dry subject, is here treated with a fulness not else- 
where to be found,. The account of the thermometrical 
observation and of Professor Tait’s subsequent researches, 
with the actual instruments employed, is a valuable part of 
the book. Listening to these detailed descriptions of what 
they were trying to do and how they attempted to do it, 
we are hardly aware that we have been carried through 
more than a hundred closely printed pages, and from the 
shores of Old England to the Peak of Teneriffe. But the 
real work of the expedition was now to begin with the 
running of a section across the North Atlantic. A good 
deal of information from previous observation was already 
in existence regarding the depths and form of the bottom 
of this ocean. But no such series of soundings had ever 
been made across it as was now to be carried out by the 
Challenger. Twenty-four soundings, fifteen dredgings, 
two trawlings, and thirteen serial temperature soundings, 
were taken between Teneriffe and the West Indies. A 
brief description of the more interesting features of these 
researches is given, and then, as we are carried onward to 
Bermuda and as the various treasures of the deep are 
brought before us, some species of brachiopods hauled up 
from the bottom afford an opportunity of hearing Mr. 
Thomas Davidson discourse regarding his examination of 
the whole of the brachiopoda collected during the cruise. 
At Bermuda we hear again of the wonderful AZolian rocks, 
which from the early descriptions of Captain Nelson down 
to those of Sir Wyville Thomson have attracted the notice 
of geologists. Running up to Halifax, Nova Scotia, we 
catch a glimpse of the wonderfully glaciated rocks of that 
region, and on the return voyage to Bermuda we watch 
the officers of the Expedition gauging the temperature and 
depth of the Gulf Stream, and bringing up an Arctic fauna 
from depths of 1250 to 1700 fathoms. Among the 
novelties taken are a curious ascidian, which gives 
occasion for a short discourse from Professor Herdman 
regarding the tunicata discovered and brought home by 
the Challenger. 
In this pleasant and instructive way we are led on from 
station to station, noting clearly and vividly what the ship 
passed through and what its scientific staff were engaged 
in. From Bermuda we are once more borne across the 
Atlantic and take part in another series of soundings and 
dredgings to check or confirm those obtained in the 
westward passage. Among the more interesting observa- 
tions in this second traverse were those on the occurrence 
of various abysmal brittle stars, some from a depth of 
2850 fathoms, and Mr. Theodore Lyman, into whose hands 
the whole of the ophiurans collected durimg the cruise 
were placed, gives us a 7éswmeé of his study of them. After 
some time spent in observations among the Azores and 
Cape Verde Islands, we are carried southwards to 
St. Paul’s Rocks, of which an interesting account was, 
long ago, given by Darwin, and to which attention has 
recently been called by the Abbé Rénard, whose investiga- 
tion of the microscopic structure of the rock has already 
appeared in the Reports of the Challenger expedition. 
We catch a tantalising glimpse of Fernando Noronha, re- 
garding which little new information can be obtained, since 
the Governor refuses permission to make collections. So, 
casting a wistful look at its colossal peak (Fig. 1) we are 
transported to the coast of Brazil, and thence back again 
into the centre of the South Atlantic where the lonely 
rocks fof Tristan da Cunha rise above the waves. This 
section of the voyage is full of interest. The naturalists 
are evidently getting more practised in their duties, the 
crew more expert in the labours of sounding, trawling, 
and dredging, and the hauls are more generally success- 
ful than in the earlier weeks of the cruise. The dredgings 
