26o : The Atlantic 



the Atlantic shore were repeated. It started with a personal interest. 

 When Edward W. Scripps was compelled by ill health to give up some 

 of his most strenuous activities in the newspaper business he settled 

 on the west coast in California. There he became interested in the life 

 of the sea and supported a small study group in marine biology. This 

 was later moved to La Jolla and became the Scripps Institute of Bio- 

 logical Research. In turn as interest in basic problems grew this became 

 the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, now a part of the University 

 of California. The University of Washington also maintains oceano- 

 graphic laboratories. 



As in other sciences, institutions in oceanography sometimes be- 

 come famous for their work in some specialty. Thus the U. S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey while carrying on all of its many regular duties 

 has devoted special attention to studies of the tides and its staff have 

 invented and built special machines for the analysis or computation 

 of tidal movement. In England at Liverpool comparable work is car- 

 ried out by a special organization, The Tidal Institute. 



Invention and ingenuity are an inseparable part of oceanography. 

 Two examples will serve to illustrate this fact. Back in the last cen- 

 tury the Scandinavian oceanographers were much concerned with the 

 nature of ocean currents. This work culminated in a theory of cur- 

 rents formulated by Bjerknes which recognized that sea water was 

 not everywhere the same but differed in temperature and salinity 

 (saltiness) at different places and depths. The differences were essen- 

 tial in accounting for the behavior of the currents. But no one could 

 prove the theory or apply it because there were no known ways of 

 taking samples of water and temperatures of water accurately at dif- 

 ferent depths. 



Then about 1900 Fridtjof Nansen, who was an ocean scientist as 

 well as a great explorer and humanitarian, invented the reversible 

 water bottle. Briefly put, this was an open tube having valves at both 

 ends. Nansen attached numbers of the tube to a stout wire at selected 

 distances by a special device. Then he lowered the wire with its tubes 

 — valves open — into the sea. When all the bottles were in place at 

 different depths he fastened a small but heavy weight, called a "mes- 

 senger," about the wire and let it fall. The messenger striking the 

 upper fastening of the first bottle released it. The bottle swung down 

 with the lower fastening as a pivot, reversing its position on the wire 

 and closing the valves, thus taking on a sample of water at that depth. 

 The swinging of the first bottle also released a second messenger 

 which reversed the second bottle and so on. A reversible thermometer 



