184 TROCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCFETY. 



ocean chemistry. His grand conclusion is that although the salinity 

 of sea- water may and does vary within certain limits, yet if samples 

 be taken in all parts of the open sea, avoiding the vicinity of land and 

 the mouths of large rivers, the proportion of each constituent to the 

 total salts will be found to be the same eveiywhere. The differences 

 in the surface sea-water, then, are merely differences due to extreme 

 dilution caused by great precipitation, or to concentration caused by 

 great evaporation. 



The rage for geographical exploration, which set in after the dis- 

 covery of America, naturally brought the sea into great(^r prominence. 

 The story of Sir John Hawkins' experiences, as told by Boyle (1699), 

 is very curious : — 



"Were it not for the Moving of the Sea, by the Force of Winds, 

 Tides, and Currents, it would corrupt all the World. The Experience 

 of which I saw Anno 1590, lying with a fleet about the Islands of 

 Azores, almost Six Months, the greatest Part of the time we were 

 becalmed, with which all the Sea became so replenished with several 

 sorts of Gellies and Forms of Serpents, Adders and Snakes as seem'd 

 Wonderful ; some green, some black, some yellow, some white, some 

 of divers Colours, and many of them had Life, and some there were 

 a Yard and a half and some two Yards long ; which had I not seen, 

 I could hardly have believed ; and hereof are Witnesses all the Com- 

 pany of the Ships, which were then present, so that hardly a Man 

 could draw a Bucket of Water clear of some Corruption." ^ 



Sir AVyville Thomson thinks that Boyle's story may have suggested 

 to Coleridge the well known lines in his " Ancient Mariner" : — 



" The verj' deep did rot : Christ ! 

 That ever this should be ! 

 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 

 Upon the slimy sea." 



The history of scientific marine exploration is of no very great 

 anti(piity. 



Two Italian Naturalists, Marsili and Donati, are said to have been 

 the first to employ the dredge for scientific investigations, about 1750, 

 when with an ordinary oyster-dredge they obtained specimens in 

 shallow water. 



In 1779 0. F. Miiller, the Danish Zoologist, invented and used a 

 special naturalist's dredge, a net attached to a square ii'on frame, and 

 with its aid he studied the marine fauna of the shores of Denmark. 



In 1805 Peron, a French Naturalist, sailed round the world and 

 made numerous observations on the temperature of the sea. He 

 imagined that the bed of the deep ocean was covered with eternal 

 ice. and that therefore life was impossible in the deep sea. 



In 1818 Sir John Boss, during his great Arctic voyage, invented 

 an arrangement, which he called the '' Deep-sea Clam," for gripping a 

 portion of the bottom and bringing it up safely, and with it he 



' Boyle's works epitomized by Boulton, vol. i. p. 281, Loudou, 1699. 



