578 
Engineer Spry’s illustrated journal in folio, 
with its hundreds of graphic sketches of 
scenery and incident,’ and Mr. J. J. Wild’s 
suggestive little books, ‘ Thalassa’ and ‘ At 
anchor.’ 
The first-mentioned work, being semi-offi- 
cial in character, has been made the subject 
of much criticism, on account of the loose 
and inaccurate way in which many of the dis- 
coveries are announced. Itis, in fact, a reprint 
of a series of letters to Good words, a family 
magazine, which were written by the director 
during the latter part of the voyage to satisfy 
a \\ 
fi i 
\\ 
TTI 
SCIENCE. 
also been severely criticised for his policy in 
withholding the collections from the British 
museum, establishing the office of the expedi- 
tion in Edinburgh, and refusing to ask the 
direct co-operation of the authorities of the 
British museum in working up his results. It 
is quite probable, to be sure, that a certain 
amount of additional support might have been 
gained by pursuing a different policy, but it is 
difficult to imagine whence it would have come. 
The British museum, like our own National 
museum, is the legal and proper place of de- 
posit for government collections which have 
Me 
es Ini 
ANIMA a Wanda 
i 
NATURAL HISTORY WORKROOM ON BOARD THE CHALLENGER. 
public curiosity as to what had been done dur- 
ing its beginning. While it is undoubtedly 
open to criticism, it is probably as scholarly a 
piece of work as most landsmen would have 
been able to accomplish in the midst of the de- 
pressing influences of ship-life; and it is so 
much more satisfactory than any other official 
attempts at narratives which have yet appeared 
in connection with similar expeditions, that 
one cannot help regretting that the Pacific 
was not written up by the same hand and in 
the same manner. Sir Wyville Thomson has 
1 The cruise of her Majesty’s ship Challenger. London, 1876. 
been worked up and reported upon, and the 
Challenger collections are gradually being sent 
there. The director of the expedition was, 
however, better fitted, both through experience 
and interest, to administer upon the collections 
brought together by his staff, than the officers 
of the natural history section of the British 
museum, no matter how much they may have 
excelled him as masters of special branches of 
work. Then, too, these men were already so 
overburdened with official routine that they 
could not have given the prominence to the E 
Challenger work which it for the time de- 
[Vou. III., No. 66. 
{ 
