416 OCEANOGRAPHY. 



Gulf of Lyon, some miles from the little port of Banyuls near Port- 

 Vendres. A cable laid across such a valley is sure to break, and if 

 the perfect knowledge of the topography of the region does not make 

 the cause of the accident clear, we may be tempted to strengthen its 

 envelope, that is to make it heavier and consequently more certainly 

 provoke a subsequent rupture. It is not without reason that the 

 English companies have in their service a fleet of telegraphic vessels 

 intended for these studies alone, carrying a special technical staff, 

 unceasingly employed in working on oceanography. They evidently 

 guard against making known the obtained results, and are no more 

 to be blamed for their secrecy than would be those contractors for 

 building railroads who, provided with detailed maps of a region over 

 which they have been ordered to lay a road, should conceal their docu- 

 ments, acquired laboriously and at great expense, from the engineers 

 charged with overlooking their work and with paying them, and who 

 on their side must, therefore, remain in ignorance of the topography 

 and geology of the country. England holds the monopoly in the con- 

 struction of submarine lines. France possesses only a small number, 

 and, even of these, the larger part were built by the English. It is 

 not enough to possess colonies beyond the ocean; it is necessary to 

 be in direct communication with them. That we are at the mercy of 

 foreigners for our telegraphic communications, the events of Siam and 

 Madagascar furnish proofs painful to record. 



II. 



Oceanography is a science which applies to the natural phenomena 

 of the sea, the precise methods of the exact sciences, mathematics, 

 mechanics, physics, and chemistry. 



It is a science of experimentation, of measurements, working by 

 analysis and by synthesis toward the final end of learning the present 

 history, and consequently the past and future history, of the earth, 

 because all science which discovers and states laws is a prevision. 

 Oceanography is thus a branch of geology, and since the soils stratified — 

 that is to say, deposited — in the midst of the sea, formed by it, enter 

 largely into that portion of the earth's crust which is directly accessible 

 to our investigations, we would be authorized to claim oceanography as 

 the most important branch of geology. It is ludicrous to hear argu- 

 ments on the Silurian, the Devonian, or the Carboniferous oceans, now 

 millions of years old, to hear discussions concerning their shores, their 

 waters, or their currents, while we still know so little of our own ocean 

 of to-day, on whose surface our vessels sail, into which we plunge our 

 bodies, over whose immense circumference we are free to cast our gaze, 

 with whose waters we moisten our lips if we wish, whose waves sing 

 their monotonous and majestic harmony in our ears, of which we can 

 take full possession by all our senses. 



