The Challenger Expedition of 1872-6 was conceived to examine the deep sea floor worldwide and disprove the theory of a 'dead zone' in the oceans below a certain depth. Using a modified Royal Navy ship, the expedition sailed nearly 70,000 nautical miles across the globe, collecting oceanographic data and marine specimens, and laying the foundations for the science of oceanography by later publishing fifty volumes of reports. The naturalist Henry Moseley...