The voyage of the Challenger

Linklater Eric

Published by Cardinal, softcover, illustrated
few signs of use


In 1872 HMS Challenger sailed from Portsmouth on a journey that was to circumnavigate the world, covering over 68,000 nautical miles and lasting a thousand days. She was a three-masted corvette with auxiliary steam, and as well as a crew of over two hundred she carried a team of scientists led by Professor Wyville Thomson.

The voyage of the Challenger was a pioneer expedition of immense \ importance. Sponsored by the British Government and organised by the Royal Society in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, its ambitious aim was to chart the depths, movement and contents of the seas, to scour the oceans for marine life, minerals, and clues to climactic phenomena. The naturalists on board, Henry Moseley and John Murray, were observant recorders of life ashore as well as at sea, and their personal journals provide a vivid picture of their remote ports of call – the bleak penguin rookeries in the Antarctic, East Indian coral and spice islands, the hostile tribes in New Guinea, and a meeting with the Mikado in Japan.