Title: 'THE SCIENCE STAFF OF THE CHALLENGER EXPEDITION NEVER DREAMED OF
OIL SPILLS'

1999 22X30 Inches

HMS Challenger
British voyage of exploration, (1872-1876)

In 1870, Wyville Thomson, Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh
University, persuaded the Royal Society of London to ask the British Government to
furnish one of Her Majesty's ships for a prolonged voyage of exploration across
the oceans of the globe. On 7 December 1872, the expedition put to sea aboard
the corvette H.M.S. Challenger.
All but two of the ship's 17 guns had been removed to make way for scientific
laboratories and workrooms designed specifically for biological, chemical and
physical work.

Between her departure in December 1872 and her return on 24 May 1876, H.M.S.
Challenger traversed 68,890 nautical miles, in the course of which she sampled
in the North and South Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and traveled north of the
limits of drift ice in the North Atlantic polar seas and south of the
Antarctic Circle.

Back at home, the scientific findings were published. The Report occupied 50
volumes, each measuring about 13 by 10 inches and as "thick as a family
Bible".

On completion, The Report discussed, with full detail of text and
illustrations, the currents, temperatures, depths and constituents of the oceans, the
topography of the sea bottom, the geology and biology of its covering and the
animal life of the abyssal waters. The Challenger cruise had lain the
cornerstone of scientific oceanography and begun its introduction to the wider
scientific and lay community.

In less than 100 years... we began to pollute the oceans.