34 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



is based upon, and makes use of, all the older fundamental 

 sciences — Physics, Chemistry, and Biology— and shows, for 

 example, how variations in the great ocean currents may 

 account for the movements and abundance of the migratory 

 fishes, and how periodic changes in the chemical characters 

 of the sea are co -related with the distribution at the different 

 seasons of the all-important microscopic organisms that 

 render our oceanic waters as prolific a source of food as the 

 pastures of the land. 



Oceanography is as yet scarcely known in most universities, 

 and when it does come to be more generally recognized and 

 provided for, it will probably be in the main as a research 

 department, carrying on investigations partly by experiments 

 in the university laboratories on shore, partly by observa- 

 tions on special expeditions at sea, and partly, no doubt, by 

 the accumulation and comparison of data as to temperatures 

 and saHnities, obtained from commercial vessels making 

 ocean traverses — all on the lines shown by the magnificent 

 " Musee Oceanographique " at Monaco, and also by the 

 programme of work of the *' Conseil Permanent International 

 pour I'Exploration de la Mer," a scheme of co-operation 

 between the nine or ten maritime nations of North-west 

 Europe, and, I think I may add, although the methods and 

 the objects may now be somewhat different, also quite in 

 the spirit of the pioneer work performed in the Irish Sea by 

 Edward Forbes seventy to eighty years ago. 



It must always remain an interesting speculation as to 

 what part Edward Forbes would have played, had he lived 

 in the great controversy which raged a few years later round 

 the Darwinian theory of Evolution by means of Natural 

 Selection. Forbes and Darwin were practically contem- 

 poraries,^ but whereas Forbes's life-work was ended in 1854, 

 Darwin's more celebrated works were not published until 

 after 1858, the year when he and Wallace laid their epoch- 



^ Darwin was precisely six years senior, being born on February 12, 

 1809. 



