president's address. 3 



relatively far advanced that it became possible to apply that knowledge 

 to the investigation and explanation of the phenomena of the ocean. 

 No one man has done more to apply such knowledge derived from various 

 other subjects and to organise the results as a definite branch of 

 science than the late Sir John Murray, who may therefore be regarded 

 as the founder of modern Oceanography. 



It is, to me, a matter of regret that Sir John Murray was never 

 President of the British Association. I am revealing no secret when I 

 tell you that he might have been. On more than one occasion he was 

 invited by the Council to accept nomination, and he declined for reasons 

 that were good and commanded our respect. He felt that the 

 necessary duties of this post would interfere with what he regarded 

 as his primary life-work — oceanographical explorations already planned, 

 the last of which he actually carried out in the North Atlantic in 

 1912, when over seventy years of age, in the Norwegian steamer 

 Wchael Sars, along with his friend Dr. Johan Hjort. 



Anyone considering the subject-matter of this new science must be 

 struck by its wide range, overlapping as it does the borderlands of several 

 other sciences and making use of their methods and facts in the solution 

 of its problems. It is not only world-wide in its scope but extends 

 beyond our globe and includes astronomical data in their relation to tidal 

 and certain other oceanographical phenomena. No man in his work, 

 or even thought, can attempt to cover the whole ground — although Sir 

 John Murray, in his remarkably comprehensive ' Summary ' volumes 

 of the Challenger Expedition and other writings, went far towards 

 doing so. He, in his combination of physicist, chemist, geologist and 

 biologist, was the nearest approach we have had to an all-round Oceano- 

 grapher. The International Eesearch Council probably acted wisely 

 at the recent Brussels Conference in recommending the institution of 

 two International Sections in our subject, the one of physical and the 

 other of biological Oceanography — although the two overlap and are so 

 interdependent that no investigator on the 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 



- The following classification of the primary divisions of the subject may 

 possibly be found acceptable : — 



Physiography 



Oceanography Geography 



Hydrography Metabolism Bionomics Tidology 



(Physics, &c.) (Blo-Chemistiy) (Biology) (Mathematics) 



B 3 



