6 president's address, ,, 



and the effect of the past history of the land and sea upon the distri- 

 bution 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 migratory 

 fishes, and how periodic changes in the physico-chemical characters 

 of the sea, such as A'ariations in the hydrogen-ion and hydroxyl-ion 

 concentration, are correlated 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 century who, I sometimes think, 

 has not yet received sufi&cient credit for his foresight and initiative, is 

 Sir Wyville Thomson, 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 

 Br. W. B. Carpenter that the British Government, through the 

 influence of the Eoyal Society, was induced to place at the disposal of 

 a committee of scientific experts first the small sui'veying steamer 

 Lightning in 1868, and then the more efficient steamer Porcupine 

 in the two succeeding years, for the purpose of exploring the deep water 

 of the Atlantic from the Faroes in the North to Gibraltar and beyond 

 in the South, in the course of which expeditions they got successful 

 hauls from the then unprecedented depth of 2435 fathoms, nearly three 

 statute miles. 



It will be remembered that Edward Forbes, from his observations in 

 the Mediterranean (an abnormal sea in some respects), regarded depths 

 of over 300 fathoms as an azoic zone. It was the work of Wyville 

 Thomson and his colleagues Carpenter and Gwyn Jeffreys on these 

 successive dredging expeditions to prove conclusively what was 

 beginning to be suspected by naturalists, that there is no azoic zone in 

 the sea, but that abundant life belonging to many groups of animals 

 extends down to the greatest depths of from four to five thousand 

 fathoms — nearly six statute miles from the surface. 



These pioneering expeditions in the Lightning and Porcupine — 

 the results of which are not even yet fully made known to science^ 

 were epoch-making, inasmuch as they not only opened up this new 

 region to the systematic marine biologist, but gave glimpses of world- 

 wide problems in connection with the physics, the chemistry and the 

 biology of the sea which are only now being adequately investigated by 

 the modern oceanographer. These results, which aroused intense 

 interest amongst the leading scientific men of the time, were so rapidly 

 surpassed and overshadowed by the still greater achievements of the 



