46 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mcintosh, Percy Sladen, the Abbe Renard, Hjalmar Theel, 

 Sir William Turner, Canon Norman, Professor P. G. Tait, 

 Hoek, Perceval Wright, and a number of younger men who 

 have since attained distinction, but were then just launched 

 on a scientific career. During that time the distribution of 

 many of the groups of animals to specialists, and the form in 

 which the Reports were to be published, wa3 being decided 

 on, and many interesting details had to be arranged between 

 Sir Wyville and his " Reporters " on the one hand, and the 

 Stationery Office of the Government (which undertook the 

 publication) on the other, the latter seeming to have great 

 difficulty in understanding the curious requirements of 

 scientific authors in regard to printing and illustration. 



During this time at home Sir Wyville published* his 

 preliminary account of the general results of the expedition, 

 in two volumes, entitled " Voyage of the ' Challenger ' — The 

 Atlantic " — which were to have been followed by com- 

 panion volumes on the Pacific that, unfortunately, never 

 appeared. " The Atlantic " is a most readable work, full of 

 observations on the Botany, Geology and Antiquities of the 

 places visited as well as on the Marine Biology of the cruise. 

 A notable feature of the book is the series of really beautiful 

 text-figures illustrating the new species of Echinodermata 

 and Sponges, which Professor Thomson had to some extent 

 investigated during the voyage, and which he briefly described 

 in these two volumes. Some of the figures of Holothurians, 

 Sea-urchins and Star-fishes show interesting cases of " direct 

 development " of deep water or antarctic Echinoderms, where 

 the young were found in curiously devised marsupial cavities 

 and had evidently never passed through a free larval stage. 



I shall quote here a couple of passages from " The 

 Atlantic," to give some idea of the varied interest of the book 

 and of Sir Wyville's descriptive power. 



* Macmillan & Co., London, 1877. 



