3.—Pioneering in Large-scale Scientific Organisation: The Challenger Expedition and its Report. I. Launching the Expedition.

Abstract

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.