NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
771 
muss Bewegung, Veranderung haben ; jetzt docire und studire ich nur. eine trockne 
Beschaftigung die mir auf die Lange ein schlimmeres Nervenfieber zuziehen wlirde als 
wie je Indien mir bereiten konnte. Ich hatte viel in mich aufgenommen, dass trug 
gute Friichte, aber jetzt muss flir neue Nahrung gesorgt werden.” Yon Willemoes 
Suhm having learned that a museum was to be built in Ceylon, and a curator would be 
required, applied to Professor Huxley, through the mediation of Professor von Siebold, 
for advice, but the application came to nothing. 
In the summer of 1872 he accompanied a Danish Expedition to the North Sea and 
the Fseroe Islands. On his return the ship put into Leith, and he visited Professor 
Wyville Thomson in Edinburgh, on whose invitation he agreed to join the Civilian 
Scientific Staff of the Challenger Expedition. 
While engaged on board the Challenger he was an indefatigable worker and a 
o o o o 
cheerful companion. A few days after leaving the Sandwich Islands he said that as 
he was now homeward bound he intended to devote several hours every day to the 
collection and arrangement of the observations which he had made. A few clays later 
he was seized by the deadly disease which removed him on the 13th September 1875. 
Professor Wyville Thomson writing from Tahiti, October 1st, says of him — 
“ Altogether I looked upon R. von Willemoes Suhm as a young man of the very highest 
promise, perfectly certain, had he lived, to have achieved a distinguished position in 
his profession, and I regard his untimely death as a serious loss, not only to the 
Expedition in which he took so important a part, but also to the younger generation of 
scientific men, among whom he was steadily preparing himself to become a leader.” 
A tablet to the memory of R. von Willemoes Suhm has been erected in his native 
place by his colleagues in the Challenger. A list of his contributions to the Zoology of 
the Expedition will be found in the Bibliography which accompanies this volume. 
From Hawaii Island to the parallel of 11° N., the mean direction of the wind was 
E. by N., gradually decreasing from a force of 4 at Hilo to a calm at that parallel. 
Light winds were then experienced, varying from south to east to the parallel of 6° N., 
when the southeast trade was fallen in with, which gradually shifted east as the ship 
proceeded to the southward, its mean direction at the Equator being S.E. by E., on the 
parallel of 5° S., east, and of 9° E.N.E. from the 13th parallel to Tahiti little or no 
wind was experienced. The northeast trade was squally, with passing showers ; the belt 
from 11° to 6° N. was cloudy, squally, and rainy; the southeast trade was steady and 
the weather fine. 
The bed of the ocean between Hawaii and Tahiti undulates somewhat, the depth 
varying from 2300 to 3000 fathoms, the mean depth being about 2650 fathoms. 
The bottom temperature varied 0°‘7, viz., from 35° ‘2 to 34°‘5, the mean being 35°‘0. 
or only 0°T lower than the mean north of the Sandwich Islands. 
