8i4 



NATURE 



[August 26, 1920 



ence in recommending the institution of two Inter- 

 national Sections in our subject, one of physical and 

 the other of biological oceanography, although the 

 two overlap and are so interdependent that no inves- 

 tigator on one side can afford to neglect the other.' 



On the present occasion I must restrict myself 

 almost wholly to the latter division of the subject, 

 and be content, after brief reference to the founders 

 and pioneers of our science, to outline a few of those 

 investigations and problems which have appeared to 

 me to be of fundamental importance, of economic 

 value, or of general interest. 



Although the name "oceanography " was only given 

 to this branch of science by Sir John Murray in 1880, 

 and although, according to that veteran oceanographer 

 Mr, J. Y. Buchanan, the last surviving member of 

 the civilian staff of the Challenger, the science of 

 oceanography was born at sea on February 15, 1873,^ 

 when at the first official dredging station of the 

 expedition, to the westward of Teneriffe, at 1525 

 fathoms, everything that came up in the dredge was 

 new, and led to fundamental discoveries as to the 

 deposits forming- on the floor of the ocean, still it 

 may be claimed that the foundations of the science 

 were laid by various explorers of the ocean at much 

 earlier dates. Aristotle, who took all knowledge for 

 his province, was an early oceanographer on the shores 

 of Asia Minor. When Pytheas passed between the 

 Pillars of Hercules into the unknown Atlantic and 

 penetrated to British seas in the fourth century B.C., 

 and brought back reports of Ultima Thule and of a 

 sea to the north thick and sluggish like a jellyfish, 

 he may have been recording an early planktonic 

 observation. But passing over all such and many 

 other early records of phenomena of the sea, we 

 come to surer ground in claiming as founders of 

 oceanography Count Marsili, an early investigator of 

 the Mediterranean, and that truly scientific navigator 

 Capt. James Cook, who sailed to the South Pacific 

 on a Transit of Venus expedition in 1769, with Sir 

 Joseph Banks as naturalist, and by afterwards cir- 

 cumnavigating the South Sea about latitude 60° 

 finally disproved the existence of a great southern 

 continent; and Sir James Clark Ross, who, with Sir 

 Joseph Hooker as naturalist, first dredged the 

 Antarctic in 1840. 



The use of the naturalist's dredge (introduced by 

 O. F. Miiller, the Dane, in 1799) for exploring the 

 sea-bottom was brought into prominence almost 

 simultaneously in several countries of North-West 

 Europe — by Henri Milne-Edwards in France in 1830, 

 by Michael Sars in Norway in 1835, ^"<1 by our own 

 Edward Forbes about 1832. 



The last-mentioned genial and many-sided g-enius 

 was a notable figure in several sections of the British 

 Association from about 1836 onwards, and mav fairly 

 be claimed as a pioneer of oceanography. In 1839 

 he and his friend the anatomist, John Goodsir, were 

 dredging in the Shetland seas, with results which 

 Forbes made known to the meeting of the British 

 Association at Birmingham that summer, with such 



1 The followinfi; classification of the primary divisions of the subject may 

 possibly be found acceptable :— 



Physiography 



Oceanography 



Geography 



Hvdrography Metabolism Bionomics Tidology 



(Physics, etc.) (Biochemistry) (Biology) (Mathematics) 



2 Others might put the date later. Significant publications are Sir John 

 Murray s Summary Volumes of the Challenzer (i8qs), the inauguration of 

 the Mus6e Oc^anographique at Monaco in igio, the foundation of the 

 Instituf Ocfeanographique at Paris in 1906 (see the Prince of Monaco's letter 

 '?t'u ^'"'^','r'' °'" Public Instruction), and Sir John Murray's little book 

 1 he Ocean (1913), where the superiority of the term "oceanography" 

 to thalassography" (used by Alexander Agassiz) is discusstd. 



NO. 2652, VOL. 105] 



good effect that a " Dredging Committee " ' of the 

 Association was formed to continue the good work. 

 Valuable reports on the discoveries of that committee 

 appear in our volumes at intervals during the fol- 

 lowing twenty-five years. 



It has happened over and over again in history 

 that the British Association, by means of one of it's 

 research committees, has led the way in some im- 

 portant new research or development of science, and 

 shown the Government or an industry what wants 

 doing and how it can be done. We may fairly claim 

 that the British Association has inspired and fostered 

 that exploration of British seas which through marine 

 biological investigations and deep-sea expeditions has 

 led on to modern oceanography. Edward Forbes and 

 the British Association Dredging Committee, Wyville 

 Thomson, Carpenter, Gwyn Jeffreys, Norman, and 

 other naturalists of the pre-ChaLlenger days — all these 

 men in the quarter-century from 1840 onwards worked 

 under research committees of the British Association, 

 bringing their results before , successive meetings; and 

 some of our older volumes enshrine classic reports 

 on dredging by Forbes, McAndrew, Norman, Brady, 

 Alder, and other notable naturalists of that day. 

 These local researches paved the way for the Chal- 

 lenger and other national deep-sea expeditions. Here, 

 as in other cases, it required private enterprise to 

 precede and stimulate Government action. 



It is probable that Forbes and his fellow-workers 

 on this "Dredging Committee " in their marine 

 explorations did not fully realise that they were 

 opening up a most comprehensive and important 

 department of knowledge. But it is also true that in 

 all his expeditions — in the British seas from the 

 Channel Islands to the Shetlands, in Norway, and in 

 the Mediterranean as far as the /Egean Sea — his broad 

 outlook on the problems of Nature was that of the 

 modern oceanographer, and he was the spiritual 

 ancestor of men like Sir Wyville Thomson, of the 

 Challenger Expedition, and Sir John Murray, whose 

 accidental death a few years ago, whilst still in the 

 midst of active work, was a grievous loss to this 

 new and rapidly advancing science of the sea. 



Forbes in these marine investigations worked at 

 border-line problems, dealing, for example, with the 

 relations of geology to zoology and the effect of the 

 past history of the land and sea upon the distribution 

 of plants and animals at the present day, and in these 

 respects he was an early oceanographer. For the 

 essence of that new subject is that it also investigates 

 border-line problems, and 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 migratorv fishes, 

 and how periodic changes in the physico-chemical 

 characters of the sea, such as variations in the 

 hydrogen-ion and hydroxyl-ion concentration, are cor- 

 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. 



Another pioneer of the nineteenth centurv who, I 

 sometimes think, has not yet received suflRcient credit 

 for his foresight and initiative is Sir Wyville Thom- 

 son, whose name ought to go down through the ages 

 as the leader of the scientific staff on the famous 

 Challenger Deep-Sea Exploring Expedition. It is 

 due chiefly to him and to his friend, Dr. W. B. 



3 " Foi* researches with the dredge, with a view to the investigation of 

 the marine zooloev of Great Britain, the illustration of the geographical 

 distribution o*" marine animals, and the more accurate determination of the 

 fossils of the Pleistocene period : under the superintendence of Mr. Gray, 

 Mr. Forbes, Mr. Goodsir, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Thomp<^on of Belfast, Mr. 

 Ball of Dublin, Dr. Geo'-ge Johnston, Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill, and Mr. 

 A. Strickland, 60/." Report for 1839, p. xxvi. 



