THOMSON, SIR CHARLES WTYILLE (1830 82). A British naturalist, born in Scotland as Wyville Thomas Charles, which name was changed when lie was knighted. He was edu cated in medicine, hut turned his attention to botany, and afterwards to a broader considera tion of natural history, and became in 1S53 pro fessor of natural history in Queen's College, Cork. In 1860 he became professor of natural science at Belfast, and in 1870 at the Univer sity of Edinburgh. He early became interested in problems relating to life in the deeper parts of the sea, and in 1S65, with Dr. W. B. Car penter, made investigations north of Scotland in the gunboat Lightning. Other ocean voyages for scientific sounding and dredging were conducted subsequently, and their results were popularly explained in The Depths of the Sea (1873), a volume which attracted much attention. The interest thus aroused was influential in caus ing the British Government to undertake the renowned Challenger (q.v.) exploring expedition, the scientific conduct of which was given to Professor Thomson. The successful and brilliant
outcome of this undertaking was recognized at its close, in 1876, by the conferring of knight hood upon ThQrruA0u and by scientific honors from all parts of the world. Sir Wyville re sumed his lectures at. the university, and began to superintend the disposal of the scientific material from the expedition, placing it in the hands of specialists to be exhaustively studied. He prepared at once a general narrative, The Voyage of the Challenger (2 vols., 1877), but became ill in 1879 and died in 1882. Besides the books mentioned, he was the author of more than forty papers of importance published in sci entific periodicals. relating largely to marine zoology and especially to echinoderms, recent and fossil. He devised many of the methods and invented much of the apparatus used in deep sea exploration (q.v.).