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Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Arctic regions on board a whaler in 1868, on which occasion he not only 
collected large numbers of marine organisms, but made many observations 
in what we should now call oceanography. 
Murray’s great opportunity came in 1872 when he was appointed to 
the staff of the Challenger Expedition, that famous expedition, organised 
in this city, which will probably be for all time recognised as the most 
important in the history of oceanic exploration. Murray played a large 
part in the preliminary organising and fitting out as well as in the conduct 
of tlie expedition. During the four years of the actual voyage he specialised 
particularly in the collection and study of pelagic organisms and deep-sea 
deposits, but his greatest work in this connection and the great work’ of his 
life was after the return of the expedition. Owing to the failing health of 
Sir Wyville Thomson the main share in organising the working out of 
the enormous collections fell very soon to Murray, and after Thomson’s 
death in 1882 he became in name, as he already was in fact, responsible 
for this side of the work. For nineteen years Murray managed the most 
remarkable team of scientific workers which was probably ever brought 
into collaboration. Agassiz, Allman, Buchan, Buchanan, Bergh, Brooks, 
Carpenter, von Graff*, Gunther, Haddon, Haeckel, K Hertwig, Harmer, 
Herd man, Huxley, Hubrecht, Kolliker, Moseley, MTntosh, Pelseneer, 
W. K. Parker, Renard, Sars, Sollas, Schulze, Selenka, Sclater, Tait, Theel, 
Turner : all these, in addition to other and younger workers, contributed, 
and contributed of their best, to these wonderful fifty volumes which form 
not merely the foundation but a great part of the whole edifice of modern 
oceanography^ One of the most remarkable feats in Murray’s life was 
surely his management of this great body of workers, differing widely in 
nationality, in temperament, and in industry : in getting each one of them 
to carry out investigations of the most arduous kind extending in some 
cases over many years, and to get his results completed and put into form 
for publication. The extraordinary driving power which Murray possessed 
is shown by the carrying of this great work to a triumphant completion, 
and his ability as a leader of men is testified to by the address, expressive 
of esteem and friendship, presented to him by his collaborators on its 
completion. There were other difficulties in Murray’s path besides those 
naturally inherent to such a work. The Government had behaved with 
liberality unusual in a British Government in paying the expenses of the 
actual expedition ; but, in strict accordance with ciistom, difficulties were 
raised about the expenditure necessary for working out and publishing the 
results — in other words, about securing that the main expenditure should 
not have been so much money thrown away. The annual grant was with- 
