128 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



appointed a commission of experts to revise the chart and 

 issue a new and improved edition. 



In July, 1891, the Prince of Monaco, accompanied by his 

 collaborator. Baron Jules de Guerne (then President of the 

 Zoological Society of France), attended a special meeting of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh for the purpose of delivering 

 an address ^ upon the arrangements he had adopted in his new 

 yacht ("PrincesseAliceI")f or the adequate study of problems 

 of the ocean. In speaking of his earlier work on the schooner 

 " Hirondelle," after some remarks on the importance of 

 work at sea and the difficulty of finding scientific men who can 

 carry it out, he said : "It was consequent on such reflections 

 that, some seven or eight years ago, I undertook the mission 

 that lay before me because I was at once a sailor and devoted 

 to science." He then describes his soundings, temperature 

 observations and dredgings in the Gulf of Gascony down to a 

 depth of 500 metres, and his arrangements on the new yacht 

 for similar work in any depths up to 8,000 metres. He gave 

 an account also of the results of his " drift-floats " up to that 

 time in regard to the directions and mean velocity of the 

 currents in the North Atlantic. Incidentally, in answer to 

 the question, " What is oceanography ? " he says it will soon 

 appear as strange as the question would be, " What is 

 geography ? " and he divides physiography into these two 

 departments of knowledge, geography and oceanography. 



The magnificent oceanographical museum, which the 

 Prince has built on the southern face of the ancient rock of 

 Monaco rising steeply from the edge of the Mediterranean, 

 was inaugurated by a series of impressive functions lasting 

 for four days at the end of March, 1910. Oceanographers 

 and other scientific men representative of many countries 

 were present on the invitation of the Prince, and France, 

 Italy and Germany at least had sent ships of their navy, 

 which were thrown open to the scientific visitors along with 

 the Prince's yacht. In his inaugural address the Prince gave 

 ^ Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xviii, p. 295. 



