LIFE IN THE OCEAN/ 



By Karl Brandt. 



On account of the favorable situation of the University of Kiel on 

 the .seacoast, a part of the corps of instructors of the universit}- has, 

 for a long time, but especially since the creation in 1870 of the Kiel 

 commission for the scientific study of the German seas, directed its 

 labors principally toward the stud)^ of the phenomena of life in the 

 ocean. 



The field is vast; it not only brings rich harvests to zoologists, bot- 

 anists, and oceanographers, but also supplies valuable data to the 

 chemist, the physicist, the physiologist, and hygienist. Our univer- 

 sity, which originally had rather the character of a provincial institu- 

 tion of Schleswig-Holstein, has been insensibly metamorphosed into 

 a special German university for the study of the things of the sea, 

 while a part of our instructors at the same time teach in the naval 

 academy. This specialization has been made known abroad by the 

 fact that the first great German expedition for marine exploration, 

 called the Plankton expedition, was carried out by members of our 

 university. To the work of the commission for the scientific study of 

 the German seas is due also the particular character of the researches 

 carried on at Kiel during the second half of the century now closing, 

 that is, since biological study of the ocean has been somewhat 

 extended. The commission was assigned the task especially of inves- 

 tigating marine phenomena from the point of view of the exploitation 

 of their animal resources; its labors mark the first step in a course 

 having for its principal aim the discovery of the general laws which 

 govern the phenomena of marine life, and of which the knowledge is 

 necessary for the best success of the fisheries. ■ 



Questions of general biology have thus been brought to the front, 

 and methods have been invented for penetrating the secrets of the 

 deep for the profit of mankind. We are still far from our goal. For 

 to reach it, observations, however numerous, on the behavior of the 

 organisms that live in the sea, or their mutual relations, and on the 



'Translated from Revue Scientifique, 4th series, tome 12, October 21, 1899. 



493 



