THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



3°9 



or in its city. He surely would fare ill 

 at Wesleyan University who said "The 

 sabbath was made for man, and not 

 man for the sabbath" and "Beware 

 of the scribes which . . . for a pretence 

 make long prayers; these shall receive 

 greater damnation." The trustees of 

 Wesleyan University still have the op- 

 portunity to decline to accept the resig- 

 nation of the professor of economics 

 and social science. The other honorable 

 alternative is to change the name of 

 the institution to the "Middletown 

 Methodist College." 



THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN 

 Oceanography as a science may be 

 dated from the voyage of the Chal- 

 lenger round the world from 1872 to 

 1876 under the scientific direction of 

 Sir Wyville Thomson and the naval 

 command of Sir George Nares. Sir 

 John Murray was one of the naturalists 

 of the expedition and later became 

 editor of the great series of reports. 

 In addition he has published many 

 important papers on oceanography and 

 marine biology and has conducted sur- 

 veys in marine and inland Scottish 

 waters. Probably Sir John Murray 

 and Alexander Agassiz are the two men 

 who have accomplished the most for 

 marine biology, and it is a cause for 

 pride that both were born on this side of 

 the Atlantic. We may also view with 

 gratification the earlier work of Bache 

 of our coast survey and of Maury of 

 our navy, who in the forties and fifties 

 laid the foundation on which the sci- 

 ence of oceanography has been erected. 

 When Sir John Murray visited the 

 United States last year and made a 

 series of extremely interesting ad- 

 dresses in various places, he established 

 a fund in honor of Alexander Agassiz, 

 under the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences, for a medal to be conferred for 

 distinction in oceanographic research. 

 It should give us pause to reflect that 

 there is none so well deserving this 

 medal as were Dana, Bache, Maury 

 and Agassiz. 



In 1909 Sir John Murray — who like 

 Agassiz acquired wealth by an inci- 

 dental use of his scientific observations 

 — offered to defray the expenses of a 

 cruise of the Michael Sars in the North 

 Atlantic, if the Norwegian government 

 would lend the ship and its scientific 

 staff. The expedition was undertaken 

 with the cooperation of Dr. Johan 

 Hjort, director of Norwegian fisheries. 

 The Michael Sars, named in honor of 

 the naturalist who sixty years ago 

 made dredgings off the coast of Nor- 

 way, was admirably equipped for deep- 

 sea explorations. Starting from the 

 east of Ireland it worked down to the 

 Canaries and by way of the Azores to 

 New Trinidad and back to Ireland and 

 Bergen. About 120 observing stations 

 were established and much valuable in- 

 formation was obtained, while the bio- 

 logical material has been distributed to 

 specialists in different parts of the 

 world. 



A general account of the researches 

 undertaken by the Michael Sars and of 

 the modern science of oceanography 

 has now been prepared by Sir John 

 Murray and Dr. Hjort and has been 

 published by The Macmillan Company. 

 The book contains some 600 illustra- 

 tions, the portrait of Sir John Murray 

 being here reproduced, and forms an 

 accurate and readable account of what 

 is known in regard to the depths of 

 the oceans of the earth. 



GEORGE HOWARD DARWIN 



Sir George Darwin, of whose death 

 we learned not long ago, was, perhaps 

 as much as any of our times, one of 

 the most noteworthy examples of the 

 best scientific lives of our generation. 

 Sprung from a family with notable 

 scientific traditions for several genera- 

 tions, and gifted with talents in no 

 way inferior to the best of those 

 amongst whom he worked, he employed 

 all the resources at his command for 

 the promotion of the highest interests 

 both of his own subject and of the 



