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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
liberally lent by Government for the purposes of science, is a 
spar-decked * * * § corvette of 2,000 tons’ displacement, her tonnage 
being greater than that of all the other ships together which 
formed the expedition of Cook in 1772. Sixteen out of the 
eighteen 68-pounders which formed her armament had been 
removed, so that the main deck was almost clear for scientific 
action. Besides private cabins there is a commodious zoological 
workroom (see Fig. 1 ), a chemical and physical laboratory, and 
a dark room and working room for the photographers. The 
weight of the ship is so great that there can be no u give and 
take ” between it and the dredge, tending thus to jerk the 
latter off the ground. This will probably be met by using a 
rope of a length greatly in excess of the depth to be explored, 
and by attaching weights to it. Dredging and sounding are to 
be carried on from the mainyard, and not, as in the cruise of 
H.M.S. Porcupine, from a derrick at the bow or stern.f A 
strong pennant is attached by tackle to the end of the yard, a 
compound arrangement of fifty-five Hodges’ 66 accumulators ” J 
being hung to the pennant, and beneath it is a block through 
which the dredge-rope is run. This arrangement is better than 
dredging from a derrick. 
The navigation of the ship was under the charge of Captain 
Nares, R.N., Professor Wyville Thomson being at the head of 
the scientific staff, which consisted of Mr. H. N. Moseley, M.A. 
(Oxon\ as botanist; the late (unfortunately) Dr. Rudolf von 
Willemoes-Suhm, a distinguished pupil of Professor von 
Siebold, of Munich, as zoologist ; Mr. Buchanan as chemist ; 
Mr. Murray as geologist ; and Mr. Wild as artist and private 
secretary to the director of the scientific staff. 
With regard to the furniture of the zoological laboratory, § 
* This is an advantage, according to Professor Wyville Thomson. — 
“.Nature,” vol. vii. p. 386. 
f This arrangement is figured in Professor Wyville Thomson’s “Depths 
of the Sea,” fig. 46, p. 248. 
J.This is figured in an article by W. Lant Carpenter, “ On the Apparatus 
employed in Deep Sea Explorations on board H.M.S. Porcupine , in the 
Summer of 1869.” — “Popular Science Review,” vol. ix. p. 286. This 
machine itself is well described in some humorous verses sent to the “Cape 
Monthly,” by one “ Jack Skylight ” : — 
“ It ain’t a bad doge neither ; for when it’s pulled it stretches, 
And gives a kind of surge when the dredge at summut ketches : 
It’s like a concertina, Bill, but where the wind is squoze, 
From end to end a set of stays like Inde-rubber goes ; 
A block is tacked at bottom, and through it runs the line,” &c. 
§ See the first of a series of letters sent by Dr. von Willemoes-Suhm to 
Professor Siebold, which appeared in “ Siebold und Kolliker’s Zeitschrift,” 
Band, xxiii. to xxv. inclusive. 
