3-053-478 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger: the Challenger made fast to St. Paul's Rocks, 1873. First global marine research expedition. 'Much interest is felt in the Government scientific expedition...for deep-sea explorations in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans...Mr. J. J. Wild sends us a sketch..."A boat was sent off with a lot of whaleline, and a loop of eight or ten ply of this was passed round one of the rocks. To this a hawser was run from the ship, lying at a distance of about 70 yards, her bows in 104 fathoms water. The hawser was made fast to the whale-line, and the ship moored to the rock...Captain Nares, Professor Wyville Thomson, and one or two others went ashore in the jolly-boat. Landing is no very easy matter. Right in the path of the trade wind and of the equatorial current there is always a heavy surf, which had a rise and fall when we were there against the precipitous wall of rock of from 5 ft. to 7 ft. The rock itself is in rough ledges, and landing has to be accomplished by a spring and a scramble when the boat is on the top of a wave...Next day the rock was alive with surveyors and observers of all kinds, and bluejackets fishing and scrambling and...stretching their legs, enjoying a firm foundation under their feet'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.