75 



ON THE DEEP OCEANIC DEPRESSION OEF 

 MORETON BAY. 



By Eev. W. B. Claeke, M.A., T.E.S., P.G.S., &c. 



[Head before the Hoyal Society, 20 July, 1876.] 



DrEnsTG fhe year 1875 I had the honor of laying before this 

 Society, in my Anniversary Address, an account of the scientific 

 researches carried on by Captain Nares, E-.N., and the officers of 

 the Scientific staff on board H.M.S. " Challenger," supplemented 

 afterwards by " Notes " founded on reports of subsequent obser- 

 vations by Captain Thomson, E.N., who succeeded Captain 

 Nares on the occasion of that officer's appointment to the com- 

 mand of the Expedition to the Arctic Ocean. 



The topics treated of in my Address had reference principally 

 to the Atlantic Ocean, with only scanty notices of the Pacific. 

 The supplementary notes had more special allusion to the Pacific 

 and the seas connected with it, and discussed Dr. Carpenter's 

 deductions from some of the observations and experiments made 

 by Captain Belknap on board the United States steamer " Tus- 

 carora," in those parts of the Pacific with which we are more 

 particularly interested. 



Since that paper was read, in December, 1875, the " Tuscarora" 

 arrived in Port Jackson, and I lost no time in visiting her then 

 commander, Captain Miller, who had been commissioned by the 

 United States G-overnment to make researches, . not on the ex- 

 tensive scale undertaken by the "Challenger," but chiefly for a safe 

 submarine telegraph line to Fiji and JSTew Zealand. 



I was received very kindly by Captain Miller, and having 

 learned the interest I took in such researches, he gave me satis- 

 factory information and showed me the results as placed upon 

 the chart. On requesting to be furnished with an Abstract of 

 soundings from Eiji to Australia, it was courteously accorded by 

 Captain Miller, who asked me to make no public announcement 

 till after the middle of April, as he very properly wished his 

 communication to be sent to the American Grovernment. 



In reserving my notice of the " Tuscarora' s" work till the month 

 of July I have not transgressed the limits to which her com- 

 mander's permission extended. The particulars to be mentioned 

 do not, however, include that portion of the intended line which 

 would have connected Eiji with New Zealand, because, on its 

 being known that a cable had been laid between that country 



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