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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1340 



in the British seas from the Channel Islands 

 to the Shetlands, in Norway, in the Mediter- 

 ranean as far as the .iEgean 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, while still in the midst of ac- 

 tive 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 ani- 

 mals at the present day, and in these respects 

 he was an early oceanographer. For the es- 

 sence of that new subject is that it also in- 

 vestigates border-line problems and is based 

 upon and makes use of all the older funda- 

 mental sciences — physics, chemistry and biol- 

 ogy — 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 varia- 

 tions in the hydrogen-ion and hydroxyl-ion 

 concentration, are correlated with the distri- 

 bution at the different seasons of the all-im- 

 portant 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 

 sufficient 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 Dr. 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 surveying steamer Lightning in 

 1868, and then the more efficient steamer Por- 

 cupine in the two succeeding years, for the 

 purpose of exploring the deep water of the At- 

 lantic from the Faroes in the north to Gibral- 



tar and beyond in the south, in the course of 

 which expeditions they got successful hauls 

 from the then unprecedented depth of 2,435 

 fathoms, nearly three statute miles. 



It wiU 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 sus- 

 pected by naturalists, that there is no azoic 

 zone in the sea, but that abundant life belong- 

 ing to many groups of animals extends down 

 to the greatest depths of from four to five thou- 

 sand fathoms — nearly six statute miles from 

 the surface. 



These pioneering expeditions in the Light- 

 ning 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 Challenger 

 and other national exploring expeditions that 

 followed in the 'seventies and 'eighties of last 

 century, that there is some danger of their real 

 importance being lost sight of; but it ought 

 never to be forgotten that they first demon- 

 strated the abundance of life of a varied na- 

 ture in depths formerly supposed to be azoic, 

 and, moreover, that some of the new deep-sea 

 animals obtained were related to extinct forms 

 belonging to the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Ter- 

 tiary periods. 



It is interesting to recall that our associa- 

 tion played its part in promoting the move- 

 ment that led to the Challenger ' Exi>edition. 

 Our general committee at the Edinburgh meet- 

 ing of 1871 recommended that the president 

 and council be authorized to cooperate with the 



