CHAPTER II 



A TEDIOUS BRIEF EXPLANATION 



The Marine Survey of India. The Survey-ship Investigator. The 

 Science and Art of Hydrography in general. Deep-sea Sound- 

 ing. Deep-sea Thermometry. Deep-sea Dredging. 



The present Marine Survey of India, of whose 

 records the following pages are a fragment, dates, as 

 has already been stated, from the year 1874, and was 

 established with a two-fold intention. 



Its first, and by far its most important object, is a 

 practical and economic one, namely the safeguarding 

 of navigation along the local lines of commerce. Its 

 other object, which came in rather as an afterthought, 

 and is of quite subordinate importance, is a purely 

 scientific one — namely, as opportunity should offer, to 

 gain some knowledge of the hydrography of the local 

 sea-basins, of their depth and temperature, of the 

 deposits forming in their abysses, and of the life that 

 inhabits them. 



It is more to my present purpose to speak of the 

 purely scientific discoveries of the Survey, although, as 

 is the quaint custom among English people, these are 



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