Knowledge concerning the sea and what lives within it has inevitably grown very gradually. This alien, darkly obscure medium was a supreme mystery to early man who sought food from it but seldom, except by accident, passed in his primitive vessel beyond the reassuring sight of land. For western man, the beginnings of knowledge came largely from the Mediterranean basin and chiefly from the Greeks, who first sought for answers to the problems of the Universe within the nature of what the Universe was composed. In this connection we need look only very briefly at the work of one person, Aristotle. His Meteorologica, although owing much to earlier authors, represents the first comprehensive attempt to explain the major problems of physical oceanography. It is concerned with salinity—then thought to be highest at the surface—with water movements including waves, and with the relation of the sea to rivers and to the atmosphere as well as to the possibilities of some subterranean source of water. To these was added the more recently encountered problem of tides, effectively absent in the Mediterranean but encountered in the Indian Ocean by the soldiers of Alexander the Great and then in the Atlantic by the explorer Pytheas.

I thank you most heartily for your gracious gesture in asking me to address you on this happy occasion. In one way or another, much of the work I shall report to you today was gathered or had its inception here in Edinburgh on earlier visits and I am, therefore, both grateful and proud to be given this opportunity to participate in this manner in the Challenger Expedition Centenary.

Like the world's oceans themselves, the Challenger Expedition overwhelms us by its vastness. In whatever direction one turns, the statistics speak of a copiousness, a completeness comparable to the other monuments to Victorian self-confidence. Challenger's cruise lasted 41 months; in 710 days at sea the ship travelled 69 000 miles around the globe on 4600 tons of coal. The ocean bottom was sounded 370 times, 255 serial temperatures were taken, and from the hauls of trawl and dredge at 240 stations came 600 cases of specimens animal, vegetable and mineral [2]. The 50 royal quarto volumes published over 16 years make the Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage probably the major single research project of all time, with their nearly 30 000 pages of letterpress and more than 3000 lithographic plates, 200 maps and copious woodcuts. For more than two decades, from its announcement at the British Association meeting of 1871 to the banquet held to commemorate the publication of the final volume in 1895, the Challenger Expedition and its Report occupied the entire lives of some dozen men and substantial portions of the lives of many hundreds more.

Edinburgh is a capital city of beauty, antiquity and character. Its beginnings were tortuous and dramatic, for under the slow remorseless pressures of a glacier the land on either side of the Castle Rock was scoured out into two deep valleys. The Rock itself, a plug from an old volcano, split the ice like a solid wedge and left in its trail the sheltered sloping ground to the east. On this elevated ridge the settlement began with a few primitive Pictish dwellings made and inhabited by a race which has left to us many monuments and carvings but not one single word of script. The earlier name, Dunedin, means ‘the fortress on the sloping rock’, and as such it was known to the Ancient Britons before and during Roman times. Little exact history remains; in the seventh century the Castle—fortress on the Rock—was rebuilt and enlarged for a Royal refuge. In the eleventh century Queen Margaret built the tiny chapel which stands on the crest of the rock nearly 300 feet above the gardens, and though the Castle has many times changed hands by violence, the Royal Saint's Chapel stands as the oldest building in Edinburgh.

The Reverend T. R. R. Stebbing (1835–1926), who monographed the Challenger Amphipoda, was brought up in a literary and historical tradition, but became a convert to Darwinism and a naturalist about 1860. Canon A. M. Norman was responsible for the Challenger Amphipoda being offered to Stebbing in 1882. Stebbing's monograph, in 1888, describes the collections and contains a lengthy and definitive annotated bibliography of the Order. It also contains the first indication that the Amphipoda have evolved by adaptive radiation governed by Darwinian selection. Stebbing's later work on amphipod taxonomy contains no evolutionary speculation, although his scientific essays were uniformly and sometimes acrimoniously pro-Darwinian.

Stebbing treated 63 species of presumed deep-sea benthic gammaridean amphipods. Only 44 of these are now believed to be benthic. The Challenger's gear was inadequate for collection of small abyssal animals, and pelagic species make up an increasingly larger fraction of successively deeper ‘benthic’ samples. Consequently most knowledge of deep-sea benthic Amphipoda comes from work in the last 20 years. A deep-sea transect between Massachusetts and Bermuda has at least 108 species, with a maximum of 85 benthic. Distribution is similar to that of a transect off Oregon. Most of the species are in the families Ampeliscidae, Eusiridae, Lysianassidae, Oedicerotidae, Pardaliscidae, Phoxocephalidae and Synopiidae. There is a marked change of species with depth, categorised in six faunal groupings. Endemism is high in the North American basin and there is little affinity to high latitude faunas. Size and biomass decrease with depth.

Diversity of deep-sea Amphipoda is high and comparable to that of Polychaeta and Bivalvia. Present explanations for the high diversity (number of species) are all inadequate in the absence of accurate knowledge of the rate of food supply, diversity of selectively important resources, and rate of food supply, and there is little knowledge of reasons for the high genetic variability in deep-sea animals.

The beginnings of marine biology in Scotland, to a greater extent than in England, are intimately connected with interests in antiquarian remains. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which saw the birth of modern science, there is greater interest in the earlier activities of man than there is in nature. However, the first significant figure in Scotland, that of Sir Robert Sibbald, somewhat transcends this definition. Born in Edinburgh, he was trained in medicine at Leyden and in Paris and began practice in his native city in 1662, just after the restoration of Charles II, who was later to nominate him as King's Physician, Geographer-Royal and Natural Historian, revealing Sibbald as a veritable Admirable Crichton of his time. He was concerned with the foundation in this city of the Royal Botanic Garden, which has recently celebrated its tricentenary, and also with the establishment of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh, an activity which led to his knighthood.

The accomplishments and writings by M'Intosh (1838–1931) of St Andrews are recounted in some detail. His major contribution in pure zoology was on marine Annelids, notably the (at that time included) Nemertinea. In fisheries biology his work on the effects of beam-trawling on the Scottish sea-fisheries as directed by a Royal Commission led him to a detailed description of the pelagic eggs and larvae of the major British marine food fishes. From this he came to the conclusion that, with some exceptions, the fauna of the open sea appeared to be independent of man's influence, and in this connection he demanded that regulatory measures be based only on scientific fact. Though his major contributions were in descriptive marine zoology, he never lacked the courage of his convictions on matters of theory and practice.

It may be, as Carl Sauer (1962) has suggested, that man was originally a creature of the seashores, where abundant food, tolerable climate and a ready supply of conveniently shaped rocks enabled him to develop the beginnings of culture. This may well also have something to do with our present interest in the seashore, reflecting as Sauer says a deep instinctive need to see and experience the sea. Yet it has taken man a strangely long time to become interested in the seashore as a scene for scientific activity, and perhaps an even longer time to become interested in the wider reaches of the ocean. Long after man became interested in strange beasts of countries beyond the rim of fiery peaks and strange plants from the antipodes he began to look at the shores of his own country beneath his feet. Indeed this interest came after he had developed practices of cultivating oysters and mussels in tidal impoundments. It has often been suggested that the popularisation of the seashore, both as a place to seek health and recreation and as a source of intellectual improvement, was associated with the easy access provided by the development of railways in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, as Hern (1967) points out in an amusing account of the British habit of seashore holidays, this began well before the railways. Scarborough was the first such resort or ‘spa’, started before the middle of the eighteenth century, a hundred years before rail transportation. But these early resorts were on sandy beaches; apparently only poets and wreckers frequented rocky coasts.

Robert Fitzroy is remembered mainly as the captain of H.M.S. Beagle who had Charles Darwin on board as naturalist from 1832 to 1836. Certainly what he observed during the voyage led Darwin to far-reaching conclusions which changed man's ideas on his origins: he is justly famous all over the world. But, as the excellent biography by Mellersh makes clear, Fitzroy was an interesting man too, whose humanitarian efforts have been overshadowed by those of his more distinguished shipmate.

II y a fort à faire pour réhabiliter dans l'esprit des historiens modernes le Frère Cordelier André Thevet (1504-92), aumônier de la reine Catherine de Médicis, Garde des Curiosités et Cosmographe des rois de France Henri II, Charles IX et Henri III. Est-il possible de dégager de ses travaux quelque contribution positive en matière cartographique et un apport original dans le domaine de l'ocèanographie? C'est ce que nous voudrions brièvement examiner dans ces quelques pages.

On December 7, 1872, H.M.S. Challenger left Sheemess, England, on one of the great adventures of scientific exploration, a voyage of four years which was to circumnavigate the globe and to visit all the major oceans of the world. The stated purpose and objectives of the expedition are given in a letter from the Royal Society of London to the Secretary of the British Admiralty. These goals were to study: (1) ‘the physical conditions of the deep sea throughout all the great ocean-basins’, (2) ‘the chemical constitution of the water at various depths from the surface to the bottom’, (3) ‘the physical and chemical characters of the deposits’, and finally (4) ‘the distribution of organic life throughout the area explored’ (Challenger Rep., 1 (1), iii). This was an extraordinarily comprehensive plan! To get some notion of the enthusiasm this expedition engendered and to recapture some of its excitement, one needs only to read the narrative of this historic cruise written and extracted from the logs and personal journals of members from the scientific party.

In exploring the results of the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger it is interesting to look at its impact on the science of geology. The expedition provided the first general picture of the topography and character of the sea bed, and though the actual working up of the results of this and of many subsequent voyages was done in Edinburgh by Murray and Renard, and there was no further development of marine geology as a speciality in this country at that stage, their work had an impact that far exceeded the confines of the group. This paper looks briefly at the development of two of the main ideas to arise from the Challenger studies and at their reception by the geological community in the United Kingdom.

Murray and Renard (1884) concluded that their results pointed to the likelihood that ocean basins had occupied their present positions since early geological time. They based this idea on the differing character and slower rate of deposition of the deep ocean sediments as compared to the terrigenous sediments from which sedimentary strata on land are derived and which are deposited close to the shore. Other people produced evidence from different sources, pointing to the same conclusion but its validity was strongly debated by geologists holding the opposite point of view. Both sides were, however, hampered in developing their arguments by lack of understanding of the basic processes which had led to the differentiation of the continents and the oceans and which determine why mountain building should take place in one area and not in another.

Controversy also surrounded Murray's theory of coral reefs. This too was partly associated with more fundamental issues since Darwin's theory which it was intended to supplant, though this did not happen as things turned out, was founded on the idea that general subsidence had taken place in the oceans, which would have been incompatible with the idea of permanence. Murray's theory was designed to account for the various coral formations without invoking subsidence.

The Duke of Argyll was right in thinking that Murray's theory had not had the response for which he hoped, but the probable cause seems not to have been geologists' undue reverence for Darwin's pronouncements, as he supposed, though this may have been a minor factor in the situation, but rather the able defence of his theory by Dana and others, and the fact that geologists, while alive to the need for their science to provide an explanation of the basic earth processes, were unable to find a paradigm within which they could work. In its absence they had no framework to suggest answers to these individual questions or to indicate fruitful lines of enquiry to pursue for their solution. They tended therefore to continue working along accustomed lines and, unless well established in traditional areas, to avoid involvement in tangential issues. In spite of the support which they received from Archibald Geikie, neither of these ideas, permanence of ocean basins or the formation of coral reefs without recourse to subsidence, ever came to enjoy anything like universal assent, though both appear as accepted points of view in scientific and general works published at and after the turn of the century.

A system is described which produces true-to-scale sonar maps of the sediment patterns on the seabed of the Continental Shelf waters. Correction is made for the speed of the ship over ground, and the 'drift angle' of the sonar beam during passage from one station to another. Work at sea has been extended to water depths of 250 metres, and the technique has been widely used for cable route surveys.

If any physical, chemical, or biological attribute of the ocean is examined over an appropriate time scale it is usually possible to document significant fluctuations and to discern in these fluctuations periodic as well as random components. Seasonal variations in current systems, water temperature, salinity, productivity and in the composition of biological communities are familiar examples of quasi-periodic changes commonly studied by oceanographers for the insights they offer into marine processes.

The parents of the three naturally occurring radioactive decay series (text-fig. 1),232Th, 238U and 235U, have existed since the time of formation of the earth and through the process of radioactive decay have continuously generated their shorterlived daughter radio-isotopes. Under conditions where these decay products are not separated from the parents the situation referred to as secular equilibrium may be attained at which the activity ratio of any two daughters in the same decay chain is unity. The time required for the attainment of this situation corresponds to several half-lives of the longest lived daughter nuclide. In a great many instances, however, secular equilibrium is not achieved. Excellent examples of disequilibrium are to be found in the distribution of natural radioactive decay series elements in the oceans and sediments. These situations can be used to advantage in marine geochemistry to obtain information on residence times of elements in the oceans and rates of sedimentation occurring under a variety of conditions.

The Challenger Expedition inaugurated the beginning of a thorough study of all chemical elements in marine and ocean sediments. The first determinations of radioactive elements in ocean sediments (Joly 1908) attracted scientific attention because the behaviour of these elements in the natural environment may be used as a measure of some processes occurring in the sea.

Although we may consider the insular phosphate mining interest of John Murray as one of the initial efforts in exploiting ocean-related mineral resources, only in the past decade has a concerted effort been made to mine the sea floor. At this time, commercial recovery of copper, nickel and cobalt from deep-sea ferro-manganese nodules is rapidly approaching reality, and the mining of newly discovered noble and base metal placers and lodes beneath shallow coastal waters is already in early commercial development. While some entrepreneurs, and certain member states of the United Nations, have expressed overly optimistic views, the projected growth trend of the infant ocean minerals industry does point to truly large-scale undersea mining by the end of the 1980s. The chief constraints include lack of legal protection for deep-sea operators, a need for further research on the origin of shelf placer deposits, limited trained personnel for exploration and insufficient risk capital to sustain long-term exploration, particularly in unexplored coastal areas of politically unstable states.

In terms of meeting the exploratory and engineering needs of the next two decades, we must initiate extensive research on (1) high- and low-energy marine placers, (2) direct metal sensing systems,(3) new sampling tools for rapid economic evaluation of underwater prospects and on (4) the design and development of unmanned sea-floor mining and processing machines which are highly efficient and yet do not degrade the environment.

Legal, political and social problems must also be overcome by providing laws for (1) mining in international waters, (2) for conservation of resources, (3) for protection of the marine environment, including inland seas, and (4) by directing early attention to the related socio-economic problems of employment and labour.

Of timely concern is providing the highly specialised education required of marine minerals explorationists and mining engineers, and training for sea-going technologists. Specific recommendations for solving these several problems are presented and discussed, including interdisciplinary,multi-nation co-operation.

Based on recent studies, predictions for the expansion of ocean minerals extraction during the remainder of this century are presented. The periods 1970-80, 1980-90 and 1990-2000 are reviewed to show the projected early successes of copper, nickel and cobalt recovery from deep-sea nodules by 1975, the introduction of large-scale shelf mining of noble and base metal deposits by 1980, the use of unmanned sea-floor mining systems by 1990, and the major shift to marine base metal resources by the year 2000.

Based on contemporary studies at the University of Wisconsin, mineral prospects in waters off Canada, Norway, Alaska, USSR, Greenland and Malagasy are presented, as are prospective sites on the mid-ocean ridge and beneath the North American Great Lakes. These prospects relate to copper, rare earths, gold, platinum, uranium and base metal sulfides.

Opportunities for participation by emerging nations in ocean minerals are many, including encouragement of exploration in sovereign waters, participating in exchange student training programmes, and revising tax laws to allow broader economic incentives which will, in time, provide commerce, revenue and, most importantly, employment for nationals.

The H.M.S. Challenger and D/V Glomar Challenger; it gives those of us who have had the pleasure and good fortune to be associated with the Glomar Challenger and the Deep Sea Drilling Project the greatest of pride to be identified in the name of what was undoubtedly the most progressive of all deep-sea explorations, the voyage of the H.M.S. Challenger one hundred years ago.

As its sequel, we are deeply indebted to those who explored the deep ocean basins in the Challenger before, and whose courageous and inspired explorations were instrumental in making our Glomar Challenger possible.

La Géologie sous-marine est devenue une branche importante de l'Océanographie. Elle a naturellement ses methodes propres, mais son développement a toujours été lie à celui des autres Sciences de la mer et, aussi, à celui des Sciences appliquees. Actuellement les géologues disposent de navires nombreux, d'engins et d'appareils modernes, perfectionnés et … coûteux. Ils ont entrepris de dresser des cartes géologiques au voisinage des côtes et, plus loin, sur la marge continentale. Us explorent meme la structure géologique des grands fonds.

In 1968 the senior author discovered in a Boston, Massachusetts, bookstore a sketchbook of some 33 watercolours of the Challenger Expedition painted by Benjamin Shephard, a cooper assigned to the Challenger on November 15, 1872, at the age of 31. The paintings were all accomplished between the ship's departure from Gibraltar on January 26,1873, and the completion of her February 1874 work in the Antarctic before departing for Melbourne, Australia.

Shephard's paintings are elliptical in shape and measure 9·75 by 5·5 inches, each within a painted ‘frame’ resembling a leather belt with a ‘buckle’ at the lower left. The paintings themselves are skilfully done and each shows the Challenger at a different location during the voyage.

Since all but one of the paintings were dated by the artist, it has been possible to go back to the official narrative of the expedition and to the published logs kept by the Assistant Engineer, W. J. J. Spry, and by Sub-Lieutenant Lord George G. Campbell to determine just what was happening aboard at the time each painting was made. Excerpts from these logs provide the narrative accompanying the sketches which are to be published in book form to coincide with the Challenger Expedition Centenary celebrations. Black and white photographs of the sketchbook's cover and of four of the 33 sketches are included as part of this paper (Plates 1–5).