NA TURK 



121 



THE "CHALLENGER" EXPEDITION AND 

 THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY. 



\ The Voyage of H. M.S. "Challenger." A Summary of the 

 Scientific Rctiiltt. (With Appendices). Two Parts. 

 (London : Eyre and Spottiswoodc, 1895.^ 



THE two new \olunies of the Challenger Expedition 

 ha\e appeared, and with them this momentous 

 enterprise has arrived at its final close. It is well worth 

 our while to seize this occasion for a few words of reflection 

 on a scientific drama, which is equally great in all its 

 parts and dimensions, as in the effects it has produced 

 and will yo on to produce, on tlie progress of a group of 

 sciences which every day grow more important in their 

 influence on human intellect and thought. 



It is nowadays a \er\- common complaint, that > 

 specialisation in scientific pursuits threatens to do away 

 with that character of universalit)' that was attributed 

 in former times to all those who busied their brains with 

 the phenomena of nature. I can fully rcmemlier how, in 

 my own childhood, the naturalist KaTf^oxi]v found his ex- 

 ample in .\lcxandcr von Humboldt. He was credited with 

 " know ing c\enthing," and whoever followed some small 

 pursuit as a naturalist, partook, in a certain degree, of the 

 prestige the great " Xaturforscher" enjoyed in all circles 

 of the reading public. When I was studying zoology at 

 Jena, a fellow-student of divinity asked me once, " Please 

 tell me what is the name of those stars.'" " 1 don't know, 

 my dear friend, I am studying biolog)." " Oh, I thought 



I you ' Xaturforscher ' stud\' all the natural sciences." 

 I am afraid we arc at present drifting far awa)- in the 

 opposite direction, and the general public is rather in- 

 clined to believe that each naturalist or natural philosopher 

 lives on an island, of which he investigates only a small 

 corner, without caring a bit for the rest of the island, and 

 still less for other islands and whole continents. Whether 

 we arc quite as bad, I will not try to decide ; certainly those 

 happy times are far behind us when a professor of mathe- 

 matics and astronomy taught also physics and medicine, 

 or when botany, zoolog\-, and chemistrx' were rejircscnted 

 by the only professor of medicine, and all these things 

 were taught merely by books and traditions. But e\en 

 those modest cases of personal union between zoology and 

 bolaiu', or between geolog\- and zoology, which not un- 

 frequcntly occurred in the first half of our century, have 

 passed away now at its close. Instead of such personal 

 unions, we meet with, in a well-equipped university, distinct 

 chairs for zoology, comparative anatomy, embryology, 

 pahtontology, geology, mineralogy ; round each of these 

 chairs we see gathering numbers of privatdocents and 

 other teachers, who deliver lectures on distinct specialities 

 of these sciences, which threaten to grow themselves again 

 to independent divisions craving a chair for themselves. 

 " Division of labour " is all \ery well ; but if we do not in 

 time prepare for better mental .digestion and assimilation, 

 the next century will li\e to see a new lialjylonian turret ; 

 dispersion of languages will grow to such a degree, that 

 even the inhabitants of the same scientific island will find 

 it hard to talk to each other. 



It is a consolation, under these circumstances, to see, 

 NO. 1336, VOL. 52] 



that, along with division of labour, combination of labour 

 takes its firm hold in the organisation of modern scientific 

 life, and Moltke's maxim, " march separately, attack 

 jointly," pro\es also useful in the peaceful battles of 

 thought and science. 



A splendid proof of this combination of labour lies 

 before me in the numerous volumes of the Challenger 

 Expedition. Physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and 

 botany, and all those nautical and hydrographical attain- 

 ments of modern date, have combined to produce results 

 which close a past of unwarranted belief, and open a 

 future of new research, boundless in fertility of problems 

 and of unknown possible effect on the human intellect 

 and understanding. 



The imagination of human kind from the beginning of 

 historical ages, and along all its phases of development 

 and evolution, took hold of those unknown regions of the 

 heights of mountains as well as of the depths of the 

 ocean. Covered by ice and snow, hidden in thick masses 

 of clouds, out of which thunder and lightning and endless 

 floods of rain and hail came forth, the ranges of moun- 

 tains gave birth to the grandest and most appalling 

 visions of powers, upon which the poor human individual 

 looked aghast, against whose mighty influences he felt 

 helpless, and whom he dreaded and revered. E\ery 

 human being becomes a poet under the influence of fear 

 and reverence. Both magnif)- and intensify impressions, 

 even of the most common kind, and create combinations 

 where the acutest obser\er could not disco\er any con- 

 nection. Thus the oldest forms of religious beUef, as 

 well as the numerous forms of still existing superstitions, 

 have peopled the tops of mountains and the depths of the 

 seas with images of sui)ernatural powers ; the Olymp of 

 Hellas, and the old Cerman myths, the Hebrew Jehovah, 

 and the rudest Paganism, found their abodes beyond the 

 clouds, and below the waters. And who can resist the 

 temptation of such dreams, grand and awful at once, 

 when standing on those solitary heights of the .A.Ips, with 

 ice and snow, and rock and cloud around him and below 

 him, and looking over endless ranges of peaks and 

 valleys ? Who is not struck by the image of death and 

 destruction, when he wanders on the volcanic deserts of 

 Etna, where there is not one leaf of grass, not one 

 smallest insect to keep him company ? And in the midst 

 of the raging ocean, with waves dashing against the poor 

 ship, and clouds spreading darkness around, who will 

 refrain from images of terror created by the imagination 

 of the boundless depths to which he has trusted his fife ? 

 Will there ever come a time when the human mind 

 replaces such emotions by the cool reflection that the 

 minimum or the maximum of atmospheric currents and 

 pressure causes the disturbance of equilibrium on the 

 floods of the ocean to such a degree as to shake the 

 balance of the floating mass of wood or iron, on which 

 he happens to find himself, and bring its meta- 

 centre to a position which enables the water to 

 supplant the air-filled spaces until the greater specific 

 gravity- of iron carries all away, through the lamina of 

 the hydrosphere, down to the lithosphcre, which resists 

 further gravitational concurrence ? .And will ever baro- 

 meter and thermometer, or the observing eye of the 

 geologist, caught by phenomena of denudation or glacial 

 erosion on Mont Blanc, diminish the trembling of 



