Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76 under the command of Captain George S. Nares, R. N., F.R.S. and the late Captain Frank Tourle Thomson, R.N. Prepared under the Superintendence of the late Sir C. Wyville Thomson . and now of John Murray, one of the naturalists of the expedition. Narrative - Vol. 1 only [Parts 1 & 2]. [Challenger Expedition.] T. H. Tizard et al. Antarctic,Oceanography,Polar

First edition. 4to. 2 vols. pp. liv, 509 & viii + 511-1110; 14 chromolithographs, 2 folding photographic frontispieces, 33 other photographic plates, numerous wood-engravings to text, one large folding map on two sheets in rear pocket of vol. I part 1, one other folding coloured map, 41 engraved maps including some folding, 22 engraved diagrams including some folding; occasional foxing, else very good in contemporary half morocco, gilt. Ownership inscriptions of John G. Longstaff and D. H. Plutte 1935. In 1877, Wyville Thomson had published an initial account - The Voyage of the Challenger - of the successful oceanographic expedition undertaken by the British Government to explore the physical, chemical, geological and biological conditions of the great ocean basins. A projected fuller account was interrupted by Wyville Thomson's death, but completed by John Murray and others. This fuller account appeared as these "Narrative" volumes of the extensive series of reports - over 50 volumes in all. The "Narrative" itself comprises this first volume in two parts which is stunningly illustrated with photographic and chromolithographic plates of islands, geological features, portraits of natives and their weapons, Antarctic ice, together with numerous maps of the regions visited. (Volume II, not offered here, had appeared in 1882, and contained abstracts, as per Wyville Thomson's original intentions, of the magnetical and meteorological observations of the voyage, together with appendices by P.G. Tait and A. Renard.) An impressively produced, important work.