Foreword xiii 



importance in the natural economy of the Gulf, their geographic and bathymetric 

 variations; their seasonal successions, migrations, and annual fluctuations; their 

 temperature affinities, whether arctic, boreal, or tropic; and whether they were 

 oceanic or creatures of the coastal zone. We even had no idea (incredible though it 

 may seem at this place and day) what we should probably catch when wc first lowered 

 our tow nets into deeper strata of Massachusetts Bay, for, so far as we could learn, 

 tows had never previously been tried more than a few fathoms below its surface." 



The outcome is that the Gulf of Maine is perhaps the best-known body of water 

 of comparable size in the world; certainly the region most thoroughly explored by 

 individual effort. Except for certain aspects which he did not examine deeply, i.e., 

 submarine geology and sea-water chemistry, a quarter century of subsequent study 

 added only trivial details to the picture. 



During this period Henry Bigelow was the trusted advisor of the government 

 on fisheries, a trust well earned by his first-hand knowledge of fish and fishermen, 

 and by his incisive, direct, and ever-practical approach to human problems and his 

 understanding of the role which science can play in their solution. A number of men 

 later to hold important posts in the fisheries service, Herrington, Nesbit, Schroeder. 

 Sette, and Walford, were among his students at Harvard. 



In 1917-19 Henry Bigelow served as Special Expert to the U.S. Shipping Board 

 and during 1918 the work on the Gulf of Maine was interrupted while he did his 

 trick as navigation officer on the U.S. Army transport Amphion. 



Of more interest in connection with scientific developments were his connections 

 with the International Ice Patrol, established in 1913 as a result of tragic loss of life 

 and property due to the collision of the steamship Titanic with an iceberg. Operation 

 of the patrol became the duty of the U.S. Coast Guard, while the scientific studies 

 necessary for its intelhgent prosecution were directed by an interdepartmental board 

 composed of the heads of the interested agencies. Henry Bigelow was the special 

 consultant to the Commandant of the Coast Guard for the work of this board. 

 During the early years of the patrol observations on plankton as well as surface tem- 

 peratures and salinities, were used to trace the drift of water carrying icebergs into 

 the shipping lanes; later the techniques of dynamic oceanography were introduced 

 to estimate, on the spot, the velocity of the movement. As in the case of the fishery 

 experts a succession of officers of the Coast Guard, Smith, Ricketts, Hoyle, and 

 Graves, came to Cambridge to receive indoctrination in oceanography from Pro- 

 fessor Bigelow. Largely as the result of his wisdom in guiding the scientific studies 

 on which the work of the ice patrol is based, the hydrography of the northern seas is 

 well understood and the patrol has been enabled to discharge its duties with intelli- 

 gence and success. 



The study of the Gulf of Maine naturally led to intimate contact with Canadians 

 working in adjacent, and often overlapping waters. One fruit of this was a close and 

 continuing friendship with Professor A. G. Huntsman, for many years chairman 

 of the Biological Board of Canada; another was Bigelow's association with the 

 North American Committee on Fishery Investigations, in which Canada, Newfound- 

 land, France, and the United States were associated. He attended the meetings of 

 the committee regularly between 1921 and 1933 and served as chairman at all but a 

 few of them. 



During this period Henry Bigelow formed associations with the European 



