Challenger Expedition Log of Ocean Romanticism
Challenger Expedition 152nd Anniversary this year, an expedition that founded Oceanography, found the deepest place on Earth, Challenger Deep, Mariana Trench, and today many of the hundreds of ocean specimens are in the Natural History Museum, London.
I am aware of much of the findings that my great great grandfather published with the Royal Society, but tonight found a log from a sub Lieutenant George Campbell more akin to a Romantic Poet:
“On the night of the 14th the sea was most gloriously phosphorescent, to a degree unequalled in our experience. Astern of the ship glowed a broad band of blue, emerald-green light, myriads of yellow sparks which glittered and sparkled against the brilliant cloud below… Ahead of the ship, where the old bluff bows of the Challenger went ploughing and churning through the sea, there was light enough to read the smallest print with ease. It was as if the Milky Way, as seen through a telescope, scattered in millions like glittering dust, had dropped down on the ocean, and we were sailing through it.”
#expedition #Oceanography #marianatrench
