ECOLOGICAL BACKGROUND AND GROWTH BEFORE 1900 



39 



strong mark on the later thinking of these 

 men, and their own high (juality exerted a 

 profound influence on the further develop- 

 ment of biological oceanography. 



M. F. Maury, an important pioneer in 

 oceanic research, especially as concerns the 

 meteorological problems of navigation, was 

 also interested in marine biology. He pub- 

 lished the first bathymetrical map of the 

 North Atlantic in the 1854 edition of his 

 book. Explanations and Sailing Directions to 

 Accompany the Wind and Current Charts. 

 In this map he drew contour lines for 1000, 

 2000, 3000 and 4000 fathoms. He cor- 

 rectly thought that most of the bottom de- 

 posits away from land came from the skele- 

 tons of animals that five near the sea sur- 

 face, but was mistaken in thinking that the 

 conditions in the deep sea made hfe im- 

 possible in ocean depths. A paragraph from 

 his writings will give some of his reasoning 

 (1858, p. 174): 



"Does any portion of the shells which 

 Brooke's sounding rod brings up from the bot- 

 tom of the deep sea live there; or are they all 

 the remains of those that lived near the surface 

 in the light and heat of sun, and were buried 

 at the bottom of the deep after death? . . . 

 The facts, as far as they go, seem to favor the 

 one conjecture nearly as well as the other. 

 Under these circumstances I am inclined, 

 however, to the anti-biotic hypothesis, and 

 chiefly because it would seem to conform bet- 

 ter with the Mosaic account of creation. The 

 sun and the moon were set in the firmament 

 before the waters were commanded to bring 

 forth the living creature; and hence we infer 

 that light and heat are necessary to the creation 

 and preservation of marine life, and since the 

 light and heat of the sun cannot reach to the 

 bottom of the deep sea, my own conclusion, in 

 the absence of positive evidence upon the sub- 

 ject, has been the habitat of these mites of 

 things hauled up from the bottom of the great 

 deep is at and near the surface. On the con- 

 trary, others maintain, and perhaps with equal 

 reason, the biotic side of the question. Profes- 

 sor Ehrenberg, of Berhn, is of this latter class." 



Maury then gives an exchange of letters be- 

 tween Ehrenberg and himself in which the 

 pros and cons of the matter are stated 

 fairly and without heat. 



G. C. WalUch, naturahst on the Bulldog, 

 summarized the opposite point of view in 

 1862 in statements that Murray thought 

 sufficiently significant to quote in the his- 

 torical pages of his summary for the Chal- 



lenger reports (1895, p. 95). He begins the 

 list with the assertion that 



"The conditions prevailing at great depths, 

 although differing materially from those which 

 pre\ail near the surface of the ocean, are not 

 incompatible with the maintenance of animal 

 life" 



and concludes that 



"The discovery of even a single species liv- 

 ing normally at great depths warrants the in- 

 ference that the deep sea has its own special 

 fauna, and that it has always had it in ages 

 past, and hence that many fossiliferous strata, 

 heretofore regarded as having been deposited 

 in comparatively shallow water, have been de- 

 posited at great depths " 



Herdman (1923) devoted separate chap- 

 ters to the following men as founders of 

 oceanography: Edward Forbes, Wyville 

 Thompson, John Murray, Louis and Alex- 

 ander Agassiz, Albert Honore Charles, 

 Prince of Monaco, and Anton Dohrn of the 

 Zoological Station at Naples. The work of 

 Edward Forbes has already been discussed, 

 and Murray has been repeatedly mentioned. 



Thompson was the active leader of the 

 Challenger expedition (1873-76), the ob- 

 ject of which was the scientific exploration 

 of the sea with regard to physical, chem- 

 ical, geological, and biological conditions. 

 The scientific results were pubHshed in fifty 

 large quarto volumes, prepared mainly un- 

 der the editorship of John Murray, himself 

 one of the naturahsts of the expedition. The 

 reports were written by notable speciahsts; 

 Murray later singled out the work of 

 Haeckel on the Radiolaria as being espe- 

 cially outstanding. It is difficult even yet to 

 evaluate the full importance of the contri- 

 butions made by this great voyage of 

 oceanographic exploration. The reports re- 

 main a half-forgotten mine of information. 



Among his many other activities, Louis 

 Agassiz made dredgings and soundings off 

 the coast of Florida and came to some sig- 

 nificant conclusions on the permanence of 

 the ocean basins. This matter is still the 

 center of a warm controversy, and a quo- 

 tation from Agassiz (1869, p. 368) is help- 

 ful in giving historical perspective: 



"From what I have seen of the deep-sea 

 bottom, I am already led to infer that among 

 the rocks forming the bulk of the stratified 

 crust of our globe, from the oldest to the 

 youngest formation, there are probably none 



