1876.] 



Presidenfs Address, 



351 



complete on all points, and the care and efficiency o£ the Naval Depart- 

 ment, shown in the attention paid to every detail, in the choice of the 

 ship, its stores, in the selection of the Commander, its executive officers 

 and crew, and in the forethought bestowed on its sailing- directions. 

 The selection of the Scientific Staff (consisting of Sir C. Wyville Thom- 

 son, Mr. Wild (Secretary), and Messrs. Murray, Moseley, and Dr. Wil- 

 lemoes-Suhm, naturalists, and Mr. Buchanan), and the apportioning of 

 their duties, was intrusted to your Council ; and the manner in which that 

 Staff has carried out its instructions, merits your highest approbation — as 

 is, indeed, testified by the award of a Eoyal Medal to its Chief, Sir C. 

 Wyville Thomson. Essential to complete success as all these requirements 

 were, they would have been wholly unavailing but for another, which no 

 foresight could provide for and ]io forethought guarantee ; and that is, 

 concord! The trials of social life on shipboard are proverbial; and, ac- 

 cording to the early traditions of the naval service, a philosopher afloat 

 used to be considered as unlucky a shipmate as a cat or a corpse. In this 

 case, thanks to the admirable spirit in which the Commander and his 

 executive worked with the head of the Scientific Staff and his subordi- 

 nates, I am informed that harmony reigned on board throughout the 

 voyage. And a p^ojpos of this, I may be allowed here to allude to 

 another prejudice which was once (if it be not still) current in the 

 service, and which I hope the experience of both the ' Challenger ' and 

 Polar ships will finally dispel — namely, that to have one mess-cabin 

 only for the Commander and his officers would be incompatible with 

 naval discipline. The contrary practice in both these Expeditions has, 

 as I am assured, been attended with the happiest results — and this not- 

 withstanding the addition to the mess of that dreaded element, the 

 philosophers. 



Before proceeding to glance cursorily at some of the unpublished results 

 obtained by the ' Challenger,' I must direct your attention to the number 

 and value of the scientific documents which have been from time to time 

 sent home for immediate publication ; for in respect of work published 

 during the progress of the voyage this expedition stands quite alone. I refer 

 especially to the seven folio Eeports of proceedings by Capt. Nares and his 

 successor Capt. Thomson, including twenty-nine charts of sections of the 

 great oceans, with soundings and isotherms for all depths from the sur- 

 face to the bottom. These publications, the issue of which we owe to 

 the zeal and assiduity of the late and present Hydrographers of the 

 Admiralty, are of the greatest interest — the seventh especially, which 

 gn es a complete resume of the observations obtained over the whole 

 Atlantic, and deals very ably with their results. It shows that this ocean 

 presents three deep basins, separated by suboceanic ridges. Of these 

 basins, one (the Eastern) extends along the coasts of the Old World, 

 following its main sinuosities from the latitude of Great Britain to that 

 of South Africa. The other two together occupy a somewhat similar 



YOL. XXV. 2 c 



