ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the place of the ship in nineteenth century science, extending Richard Sorrenson's argument in relation to the eighteenth century by considering the spatialities and materialities of the ship as a space of science in the nineteenth century. It discusses the story of the 'non-discovery' of Bathybius haeckelii, considering each of the specific spaces in which its story took place to highlight the interrelations between space, science and the ship. The chapter deals with to further ships as active spaces at the core of maritime history. It contributes to current scholarship on the ship by locating it within historiographic understandings of oceanic science in the nineteenth century and bringing to the fore the complexity of its spatial and material characteristics within the enterprise of making science at sea. During the period of large-scale scientific exploration, use of the ship as a suitable collector, transporter and maker of scientific facts was unprecedented; this shaped knowledge production in specific ways.
