Introduction

The Challenger Expedition is generally, and justifiably, accorded enormous respect if not reverence by historians of oceanography, as this book testifies. But it has also had its share of critics, mainly concentrating on what has been interpreted as a technological conservatism (see Chapter 1) and a distressing failure to make the most of the opportunities the voyage provided for the study of oceanic physics. In contrast, the expedition's chemistry, and particularly biology, the subject of the chapters in this section, usually receive unbounded praise.