1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Murray, Sir John

MURRAY, SIR JOHN (1841–  ), British geographer and naturalist, was born at Coburg, Ontario, Canada, on the 3rd of March 1841, and after some years' local schooling studied in Scotland and on the Continent. He was then engaged for some years in natural history work at Bridge of Allan. In 1868 he visited Spitsbergen on a Whaler, and in 1872, when the voyage of the “Challenger” was projected, he was appointed one of the naturalists to the expedition. At the conclusion of the voyage he was made principal assistant in drawing up the scientific results, and in 1882 he became editor of the Reports, which were completed in 1896. He compiled a summary of the results, and was part-author of the Narrative of the Cruise and of the Report on Deep-sea Deposits. He also published numerous important papers on oceanography and marine biology. In 1898 he was made K.C.B., and the received many distinctions from the chief scientific societies of the world. Apart from his work in Connexion with the “Challenger” Reports, he went in 1880 and 1882 on expeditions to explore the Faeroe Channel, and between 1882 and 1894 was the prime mover in various biological investigations in Scottish waters. In 1897, with the generous financial assistance of Mr Laurence Pullar and a staff of specialists, he began a bathymetrical survey of the fresh-water lochs of Scotland, the results of which, with a fine series of illustrations and maps, were published in 1910 in six volumes. He took a leading part in the expedition which started in April 1910 for the physiological and biological investigation of the North Atlantic Ocean on the Norwegian vessel “Michael Sars.”