PEELIMINARY REPORT. 3 



depths passing to 860, 1257, 1762, and the greatest depth being 2267 

 fiithoms, 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 fixthoms 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. 



