424 OCEANOGRAPHY. 



nearer the truth, showing at a glance on each sheet of "paper the pic- 

 ture of what is going on over the entire world in each order of phe- 

 nomena, showing this even more clearly than it could be seen in nature, 

 for on paper the phenomena are to some extent analyzed and dissected 

 for easier comprehension of their components. We have leisure 

 to examine separately and at the same time, by the superposition 

 of charts having the same scale, the salinity, the temperature of the 

 surface and of the depths, the meteorology, the contour of the bottom, 

 its mineralogic constitution, the currents, waves, and all else. These 

 charts permit us to combine, analyze, synthetize, experiment, sum up 

 in every way, without fatigue or danger, without travel or loss of time. 

 The scientist considers nature without leaving his laboratory, whither 

 gathers the entire world to show itself in its slightest details and to 

 unveil its mysteries. 



I have not spoken of the author of theoretical and practical oceanog- 

 raphy, founded on experimentation and measurement, as rigorous, 

 considering the imperfections of the instruments employed, as in our 

 own time. Marsigli founded it at one stroke. Born in Italy in 1658, 

 successively engineer in the service of the Emperor Leopold I, slave in 

 Turkey, member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris and of the Royal 

 Society of Loudon, covered with glory, ignominiously degraded from 

 all his titles and honors, a veritable Bohemian of science, who studied 

 the sea in Provence and published the first didactic treatise on oceanog- 

 raphy in Holland, and whose funeral eulogy was pronounced by Fon- 

 tenelle. Marsigli rose suddenly, having had neither master nor 

 precursor. Nothing was lacking to his work. It was complete — too 

 complete, for though admired and appreciated by a few rare, eminent 

 minds, among others the illustrious Boerhaave, he did not found a 

 school. Oceanography, invented by Marsigli in the last years of the 

 seventeenth century, fell into oblivion. One and a half centuries later, 

 about 1842, his studies were taken up without much success by a French- 

 man, Aime. In spite of these two men of genius, who were merely 

 isolated workers, the merit of important discoveries, and especially of 

 methodical work continued uninterruptedly during a hundred years, 

 gives to the United States the right to call themselves the founders 

 of oceanography. 



Applications of sciences result in new discoveries. The periods of 

 ambition, of geographic discoveries, scientific discoveries, observations, 

 generalizations, commercial or political interests, are evidently not 

 clearly defined. They intermingle as they succeed one another. The 

 mind goes back more than once over its steps, because attention is 

 awakened by some point which has been passed over without attach- 

 ing to it sufficient importance. Phenomena are connected with one 

 another as are the studies to which they give rise. It is necessary for 

 the success of the fishing industry that the formation and character of 

 the sea bottom be noted and submarine lithology be observed, because 



