34 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Carpenter and Gwyn Jefireys, the Atlantic coasts of Europe. 
And then, fortunately, in 1870, Wyville Thomson was appointed — 
Professor at Edinburgh, which now became the centre of the 
negotiations and arrangements with the Admiralty and the 
Royal Society that led eventually, in 1872, to the equipment 
and despatch of our great British Deep-Sea Exploring Expedi- 
tion. 
It was only an odd chance that led to Murray’s connection 
with the “ Challenger.” The scientific staff had already been 
definitely appointed when, at the last moment, one of the 
Assistant Naturalists dropped out, and mainly on the strong 
recommendation of Professor Tait, in whose laboratory Murray 
was at the time working, Sir Wyville Thomson offered him the 
vacant post—surely one of the best examples in the history 
of Science of the right man being chosen to fill a post. 
In addition to taking his part in the general work of the 
Expedition, Murray devoted special attention to three subjects 
of primary importance in the science of the sea, viz., the 
plankton or floating life of the oceans, the deposits forming on 
the sea bottoms, and the origin and mode of formation of coral 
reefs and islands. It was characteristic of his broad and syn- 
thetic outlook on nature that, i place of working at the 
speciography and anatomy of some group of organisms, 
however novel, interesting, and attractive to the naturalist 
the deep-sea organisms might seem to be, he took up wide- 
reaching general problems with economic and geological as 
well as biological applications. Amongst the preliminary 
reports sent home during the course of the expedition, and 
published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (Vol. XXIV., 
No. 170, p. 471), we find those by John Murray, written from 
Valparaiso, 9th December, 1875, dealing with (1) Oceanic 
Deposits, (2) Surface Organisms and their relation to Oceanic ~ 
Deposits, and. (3) Vertebrata (mainly Fishes) which, though 
superseded by the later work of himself and others, are still of 
