Foreword 



XV 



the birth of modern oceanography from December 21, 1872. the day when the 

 Challenger set sail from Plymouth, England, on her memorable voyage. . . . One 

 great deep-sea expedition led to another, and more was learned about the sea during 

 the last thirty years of the nineteenth century than had been during the preceding 

 three thousand. But after a time, as so often happens when some scientific discipline 

 takes a sudden spurt, this fact-finding began to lose something of its freshness. 



" Students began, in short, to feel that the mere accumulation of facts from the 

 sea, when there is an inexhaustible supply, may actually become a bit sterile, just as 



catching fish is to a sportsman where fish are too plentiful. So it was natural that 



when persistence in the old methods no longer yielded startling discoveries, signs 



could be seen of the approach of a period of stagnation . And oceanography 



would probably be in a moribund state in America today, just as the art of sailing a 

 square-rigger is, but for the birth of the new idea that what is really interesting in 

 sea science is the fitting of these facts to gether, and that enough facts had accumu- 

 lated to make the time ripe for an attempt to lift the veil that had obscured (and still 

 obscures) any real understanding of the marvelously complex and equally marvel- 

 ously regulated cycle of events that take place within the sea. 



" The foundation for this conscious alteration in view-point, from the descriptive 

 to the explanatory, was a growing realization . . . that the further development of 

 sea science the keynote must be physical, chemical and biological unity. . . . 



" When one picks up a fish one may be said, allegorically, to hold one of the 

 knots in an endless web of netting of which the countless other knots represent other 

 facts, whether of marine chemistry, physics or geology, or other animals and plants. 

 And just as one cannot make a fish-net until one has tied all the knots in their proper 

 positions, so one cannot hope to comprehend this web until one can see its internodes 

 in their true relationship. This is today the conscious aim of oceanographers." 



Newcomers may feel surprise that this viewpoint had novelty, for it is still our 

 guiding principle. But therein lies meaning. 



The task of assembling a staff for the new Oceanographic Institution at Woods 

 Hole was not an easy one for there was little raw material with which to work. There 

 were a few young men with some experience at sea, and by combing the museums 

 of the country doubtlessly he could have assembled a respectable group of experts 

 on special groups of marine organisms. A primary objective, however, was to give 

 impetus to oceanographic studies in the universities, and there was the " developing 

 viewpoint " to be fostered. He chose the bolder course of educating a new generation 

 drawn from the universities; physical chemists, meteorologists, physiologists, bac- 

 teriologists, whoever could be persuaded that scope for their skills could be found in 

 studies at sea. And so the practice grew that each should make at least one short 

 voyage at sea each season. Daily the director made his rounds, instilling little by 

 little something of his viewpoint and wisdom on the opportunities that lay beyond 

 the tide fine. Boldness was encouraged for we were told that an oceanographer, like 

 a turtle, made progress only by sticking his neck out. 



After ten years as Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 

 Henry Bigelow asked to be relieved. The painstaking labour of creating and guiding 

 the development of the Institution had been a sacrifice to the general welfare, made 

 at the expense of his own natural preference for first-hand scientific investigation. 

 He continued to guide the Institution, at first as President of the Corporation and. 



