Valdivia Expedition

Carl Chun, a famed teuthologist, held a deep conviction that there must be life, in abundance, which existed in the unknown abyssal regions of the oceans and he proposed that the German Empire organise its own expedition which was to be nationally funded with the approval of the Kaiser.

The scientific staff was made up of the botanist Professor W. Schimper of Bonn, the zoologists Carl Apstein, Ernst Vanhöffen and Fritz Braem, the oceanographer Gerhardt Schott, the chemist Paul Schmidt and Dr M. Bathman who was a bacteriologist and the expedition's doctor, who died on the voyage.

[2] The Valdivia set sail from Hamburg on 1 August 1898[2] and made its first call into the harbour of Granton, Edinburgh, where the scientists visited the offices of The Challenger Expedition Commission and were entertained by Sir John Murray.

One of the best known publications is Volume 15: Die Tiefsee-Fische by Brauer which has an editorial review by Chun consisting of a systematic and anatomical study of the deep sea fish specimens they collected on their voyage aboard the Valvidia which were illustrated by Friedrich Wilhelm Winter.

[6] Here is a sample of some of the plates from Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition auf dem Dampfer "Valdivia" 1898–1899: European and American voyages of scientific exploration