president's address. 



Challenger and other national exploring expeditions that followed 

 in the 'seventies and 'eighties of last centuiy, that there is some danger 

 of their real importance being lost sight of; but it ought never to be 

 forgotten that they first demonstrated the abundance of life of a varied 

 nature in depths formerly supposed to be azoic, and, moreover, that 

 some of the new deep-sea animals obtained were related to extinct forms 

 belonging to the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. 



It is interesting to recall that our Association played its part in 

 promoting the movement that led to the Challenger Expedition. 

 Our General Committee at the Edinburgh Meeting of 1871 recom- 

 mended that the President and Council be authorised to co-operate with 

 the Eoyal Society in promoting ' a Circumnavigation Expedition, 

 specially fitted out to carry the Physical and Biological Exploration of 

 the Deep Sea into all the Great Oceanic Areas ' ; and our Council subse- 

 quently appointed a committee consisting of Dr. Carpenter, Professor 

 Huxley and others to co-operate with the Royal Society in caiTying out 

 these objects. 



It has been said that the Challenger Expedition will rank in history 

 with the voyages of Vasco da Gama, Columbus, Magellan and Cook. 

 Like these it added new regions of the globe to our knowledge, and the 

 wide expanses thus opened up for the first time, the floors of the oceans, 

 though less accessible, are vaster than the discoveries of any previous 

 exploration. Has not the time come for a new Challenger expedition? 



Sir Wyville Thomson, although leader of the expedition, did not live 

 to see the completed results, and Sir John Murray will be remembered 

 in the history of science as the Challenger naturalist who brought 

 to a successful issue the investigation of the enormous collections and 

 the publication of the scientific results of that memorable voyage : these 

 two Scots share the honour of having guided the destinies of what is still 

 the greatest oceanographic exploration of all times. 



In addition to taking his part in the general work of the expedition, 

 Murray devoted special attention to three subjects of primary import- 

 ance in the science of the sea, viz. : (1) the plankton or floating life 

 of the oceans, (2) the deposits forming on the sea bottoms, and (3) the 

 origin and mode of formation of coral reefs and islands. It was 

 characteristic of his broad and synthetic outlook on nature that, in place 

 of working at the speciography and anatomy of some group of 

 organisms, however novel, interesting and attractive to the naturalisfc 

 the deep-sea organisms might seem to be, he took up wide-reaching 

 general problems with economic and geological as well as biological 

 appHcations. 



Each of the three main lines of investigation — deposits, plankton 

 and coral reefs — which Murray undertook on board the Challenger 

 has been most fruitful of results both in his own Hands and those of 



