our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought
to-night. It has become luminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the
abyss of the remote past, have brought within our ken some stages of the
evolution of the earth. And in the shifting "without haste, but without
rest" of the land and sea, as in the endless variation of the forms
assumed by living beings, we have observed nothing but the natural
product of the forces originally possessed by the substance of the
universe.



II


THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEEP SEA

[1873]

On the 21st of December, 1872, H.M.S. _Challenger_, an eighteen gun
corvette, of 2,000 tons burden, sailed from Portsmouth harbour for a
three, or perhaps four, years' cruise. No man-of-war ever left that
famous port before with so singular an equipment. Two of the eighteen
sixty-eight pounders of the _Challenger's_ armament remained to enable
her to speak with effect to sea-rovers, haply devoid of any respect for
science, in the remote seas for which she is bound; but the main-deck
was, for the most part, stripped of its war-like gear, and fitted up with
physical, chemical, and biological laboratories; Photography had its dark
cabin; while apparatus for dredging, trawling, and sounding; for
photometers and for thermometers, filled the space formerly occupied by
guns and gun-tackle, pistols and cutlasses.