CHAPTER XIV 



Aquatic biology. Oceanography, life of the sea, and its 

 environment. Biology of inland waters. Methods of 

 studying aquatic life. 



The development of aquatic biology, especially of its marine 

 phase, both here and abroad, has gone very nearly hand in 

 hand with the development of interest in the fisheries. Per- 

 haps nowhere else in biology has there been a better recog- 

 nition of the dependence of commercial interest upon scientific 

 knowledge of the national stomach upon the national brains. 

 The recognition of this fact in Europe led to the establishment 

 of the marine stations at Kiel, Lowestoft, Boulogne and else- 

 where, and to the development of the International Council 

 for the Investigation of the Sea, conducted jointly by Great 

 Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Germany, 

 Belgium and Russia, an ^nterprise which before the great 

 war was achieving results of vast scientific and practical 

 value, and which it is to be hoped will soon be re-established, 

 following the advent of peace. 



The earliest attempts at exploration of the sea were obser- 

 vations on currents, tides, waves and temperature. There 

 were however occasional efforts to determine the depth of the 

 ocean by the earlier navigators, some of them undertaken 

 with very ingenious, but not very successful apparatus. 



The first map of the Gulf Stream was published by Ben- 

 jamin Franklin in 1770, and a few years later temperature 

 observations along the north Atlantic coast, were made by 

 the Englishman, Blagden. 



The U. S. Exploring Expedition in 1839-42, under the 

 direction of Captain Wilkes, accompanied by the geologist 

 Dana, made a number of deep-sea dredgings. The U. S. 

 Coast Survey has made important contributions to our knowl- 

 edge of the sea since the early part of the last century and 

 the first successful apparatus for deep sea sounding was 

 devised by Midshipman Brooke of the U. S. Navy. As the 

 result of dredgings conducted by the Survey off the coasts of 

 Florida and Cuba between 1867 and 1870, under the direction 

 of the elder Agassiz, he reached the conclusion that former 

 oceanic and continental areas were similar to those of the 



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