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specimens of bottom soil were brought up, but Lieutenant Maury, questioning the accuracy of some of the Active’s work, the English Admiralty sent H. M. steamer Cyclops, Lieut. Dayman, to go over the same ground. Lieut. Dayman used Brooke’s apparatus, slightly modified, and the soundings made by him substantially verified those made by Berryman.
In 1858, Brooke, in the U. S. brig Dolphin tested his own apparatus in sounding in various parts of the North Pacific, and in 1868, Captain Shortland, R.N., in H. M. S. Hydra, ran a line of soundings from Bombay to Aden for cable purposes. On board that vessel was devised the Hydra machine, in which a spring was substituted for the trigger in the Brooke apparatus, and the tube for specimens was fitted with a piston and a series of valves. This machine, as before mentioned, is the one now prefered in the English service, and in use on board the Challenger. Captain Shortland kept a certain amount of tension on the line, and noted the time each hundred fathoms took in running out, then watching closely when the sinker was supposed to reach bottom,—the line was still permitted to run on, and if with diminished speed, it was considered that bottom had been reached: of course, if the specimen tube came up alone, leaving the sinker on the bottom, there could be little doubt of the value of the sounding. In 1870 and 1871, Commander Jno. Irwin, in the U.S.S. Yantic sounded among the West India Islands and in the Carribbean Sea. He used Massey’s apparatus and undetachable lead, with specimen cup invented by Rear Admiral Sands, and sometimes duplicated the soundings in order to verify results.
The very successful sounding and dredging expeditions of H. M. Ships Lightning and Porcupine in 1868, 1869 and 1870 under the scientific direction of Dr. Carpenter and Professor Wyville Thomson, led the English Admiralty to fit out the Challenger for the cruise upon which she is now engaged. She has a large scientific corps on board with Professor Wyville Thomson at its head, and I believe may be expected to arrive in the waters of Japan sometime in 1875.
