104 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Scops or thb 
Challenger In- 
vestigations. 
American Expedi- 
tions. 
"TrsCARORA.” 
u Blake “ 
Expeditions, 
Alexander 
Aoassix 
expedition. The Challenger, a steam corvette of 2306 tons displacement and 1234 
horse power, was selected for this service. She was fitted out under the direction of 
Admiral G. H. Richards, the Hydrographer of the time, and a committee of the Royal 
Socit v. In addition to an accomplished and experienced staff of Naval Officers, she 
arri. d six civilian scientific men appointed on the recommendation of the Royal Society 
Committee. 1 From December 1872 till May 1876 the Expedition was engaged in 
travel-sing 11 the Great Ocean Basins, taking observations and making collections. 
Ever)- branch of Oceanographic science has in consequence been enriched by a grand 
accumulation of new facts. Large collections were sent home and brought home, and 
Live been described by specialists belonging to almost every civilised nation. The 
results have now been published by the Government in fifty large royal quarto volumes, 
the present volumes being the concluding ones of the series. The Expedition was 
successful beyond the expectations of its promoters, and opened out a new era in the 
study of Oceanology. 
Since the return of the Challenger, the work of the Expedition has been largely inter- 
mixed with all subsequent abysmal researches carried out by British and foreign 
expeditions, these being, in many respects, supplementary or limited to special 
regions of the ocean, none of them partaking of the world- wide and general character of 
the Challenger explorations. It is not proposed in this place to do more than indicate 
generali v the scope of the investigations carried out by these subsequent expeditions. 
At the same time that the Challenger was engaged in the exploration of the Pacific, 
the U.S. Ship “Tuscarora” ran several important lines of soundings across that ocean. 
Wire sounding lines were made use of, and one greater depth was recorded than the 
Challengers deepest sounding. In addition to temperature observations, a large and 
valuable collection of deep-sea deposits was preserved which threw much light on the 
distribution of organic and inorganic materials on the Pacific sea-floor. 2 
Between the years 1877 and 1880, the U.S.S. “ Blake ” was engaged in a detailed ex- 
amination of the basins of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Florida 
coasts of North America, under the able direction of Alexander Agassiz. The scientific 
results of these expeditions have been made known in a large number of publications 
issued from the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University at Cambridge, 
and Agassiz has summarised the results and discussed their bearing in a general account 
of the voyages.* 
The U S.8. “ Albatross,” while engaged in the work of the U.S. Fish Commission, has 
1 Professor C. Wyville Thomson, J. Y. Buchanan, H. N. Moseley, John Murray, R. von Willemoes-Suhm, and 
J. J. Wild. 
• G. E. Dknap, Deep-»<n soundings in the North Pacific Ocean, obtained in the U.S.S. “Tuscarora,” U.S. 
Hydrographic Office No. 64, Washington, 1874. 
• 8*' Agassiz, Three cruises of the U.S. Coaat and Geodetic Survey steamer “ Blake,” from 1877 to 1880, Bull. 
Mum Comp. ZoOl., vole, xiv., xv., Boston and New York, 1888. 
