Thomson (Charles Wyville & Murray, John). Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of the H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76, under the command of Captain George S. Nares and Captain Frank Tourle Thomson, 40 volumes bound in 50, 1st edition, London, Edinburgh, etc.: HMSO for Longman & Co. [and others], 1880-95, over 3,280 plates, charts and maps, mostly lithographed, many tinted and many hand-coloured, some double-page and folding, some plates and leaves detached, some spotting and occasional damp-staining mostly at front and rear of each volume, heavier water-staining to Zoology Volumes 12 (plate margins), 14 (particularly plates at rear and final plate adhered to plate guard) and 24 Text Volume (damp rot at rear affecting margins and final leaf), small circular ink stamp 'Presented by Her Majesty's Government' to half-title or title-page of all volumes, bookplate of Cardiff Free Library to front pastedowns of all volumes, all but three last published volumes with engraved presentation inscription in the bookplate: 'From the Library of W. Kitchen Parker, FRS, Purchased by Herbert M. Thompson, Esquire and Presented to the Cardiff Free Library, June 1891', most inner hinges cracked or near broken, original publisher's green cloth gilt, many with remains of printed paper labels at foot of spines, rubbed and a few volumes damp-marked (cloth to lower board of Zoology Volume 14 damp-frayed and peeling off), 4to An uncommon complete set of the official accounts of the most important nineteenth-century circumnavigation of the globe. HMS Challenger embarked from Portsmouth on 21 December 1872 under the direction of the Scottish professor Charles Wyville Thomson and his Canadian-born assistant and naturalist John Murray. This was the first time that physicists, chemists and biologists collaborated with expert navigators to map the sea. During the four-year voyage they circumnavigated the globe, travelling 69,0000 nautical miles across the Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic oceans. They sounded the ocean bottom to a depth of 26,850 feet, discovered 715 new genera and 4,717 new species of ocean life forms, including many deep-sea specimens. Among their discoveries were many of the fish and marine creatures thought at that time to be of legend. Numerous specimens from the voyage are on view in one of the largest collections in the Natural History Museum. This fifty volume, 29,500-page report took twenty-three years to compile and publish. It includes many observations of other natural history subjects including faunae of the countries visited. The following is a selection of some of the papers included in the volumes: Birds, by P.L. Sclater, with 30 hand-coloured plates; Bones of Cetacea, by W. Turner, with 3 plates; Collections of Eggs described by P.L. Sclater; Essay on the Green Turtle by W.K. Parker, with 13 plates; Essay on Shore Fishes, with 32 plates and Deep Sea Fishes, with 73 plates, both by A. Gunther; Deep-Sea Fauna of New Zealand, by A. Hamilton. William Kitchen Parker FRS FRMS (1823-1890) was an English physician, zoologist and comparative anatomist. He became Hunterian Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in The College of Surgeons of England; elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865, awarded the Royal Medal in 1866. From 1871-73 he was President of the Royal Microspical Society, and in 1885 he received the Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians. Nissen BBI 2381; Nissen ZBI 4554; Spence 1198; Wood, p. 596. Sold as a periodical not subject to return. (50)
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