EDITORIAL NOTES. 
IX 
completion of the official publications in the same style as that in which 
they had hitherto appeared. This sum has been the only payment from 
Government funds in connection with the Challenger Expedition during 
the past six years : — the price of each volume of the Report has been 
fixed so as to repay the expenditure of Her Majesty’s Stationery Offie for 
printing, provided that the whole edition of seven hundred and fifty copies 
be sold. 
The present volumes complete the “official publications on the Scientific 
Results of the Expedition. They contain a historical review of the progress 
of Oceanography, a summary account of the observations and result 
obtained at each of the Challenger observing stations at sea, lists 
illustrating the geographical and bathymetrical distribution of marine 
organisms, and an index of the genera and species described or recorded 
in the Report. 
Two important special memoirs which, owing to unavoidable delay in 
preparation, could not be published in the Zoological and Physical series are 
appended to these summary volumes. The first is a Memoir by the Right 
Hon. T. H. Huxley and Dr. Paul Pelseneer on the rare Cephalopod Spirilla. 
one specimen of which was procured by the Expedition. The second is a 
Memoir by Dr. Alexander Buchan on Oceanic Circulation, which is accom- 
panied by an extremely interesting series of maps showing the specific gravity 
and temperature of the ocean at different depths. 
The several special Memoirs on Zoological, Physical, and Chemical subjects 
which make up the larger part of the Challenger Report were published 
separately, and in volumes, as soon as completed, wfith very little attempt 
at any systematic arrangement. It will be seen on reference to the follow - 
ing list that the whole Report is now bound up in a series of Fifty large 
Royal Quarto Volumes containing about twenty-nine thousand five hundred 
pages, illustrated by oyer three thousand lithographic plates, copper plates, 
charts, maps, and diagrams, together with a very large number of wood- 
cuts. It was originally the intention, on the completion of the Report, 
to print new 7 title-pages, with instructions for rebinding the several series of 
Memoirs in systematic order. This intention has been abandoned after con- 
sultation with many scientific authorities. Fourteen years have elapsed since 
the first volumes were published, and in scientific literature there are so many 
