THE CHALLENGER 
347 
Royal Society to apply to Government again and again 
for the use of naval vessels to investigate these matters, 
and as a result he made observations from the Shear- 
water in the Mediterranean in 1866, and secured expedi- 
tions in the Porcupine to the Bay of Biscay in 1868, and 
in the Lightning to the North Atlantic in 1869 under 
Professor Wyville Thomson. The experience of each 
cruise increased the ease of using the deep-sea dredge 
and trawl, and produced fresh evidence as to the abund- 
ance of life at the greatest depths, the variety and 
importance of the distribution of temperature and the 
interest attaching to the deposits of the deep sea. 
The various instruments used in deep-sea work were 
rapidly improved, especially the sounding-leads which 
were loaded with heavy sinkers that became detached 
automatically when they struck the bottom, remaining 
behind and leaving only a light brass tube to be hauled 
up with a sample of the deposit contained in it. 
The results of the various short summer cruises were 
sufficient to show that if an expedition could be fitted out 
for the special purpose of research in marine physics, 
chemistry and biology with all the seas of the world as 
its field of work, an immense increase in knowledge would 
be the result. The Hydrographer to the Admiralty, 
Admiral Sir George Richards, indicated to the Council of 
the Royal Society that such an expedition might be fitted 
out if sufficient reason were produced by the Society; 
and the lines he suggested were adopted in approaching 
the Government. The Treasury came to the wise decis- 
ion that money spent on such a voyage would not be 
wasted, and the right moment in the history of science 
was for once seized in the right way. The Govern- 
ment could hardly have been aware at the time of the 
