be of fundamental importance, of economic value, or of general interest.

Although the name oceanography was only given to this branch of science by Sir John Murray in 1880, and although according to that veteran oceanographer Mr. J. Y. Buchanan, the last surviving member of the civilian staff of the Challenger, the science of oceanography was born at sea on February 15, 1873, when, at the first official dredging station of the expedition, to the westward of Teneriffe, at 1,525 fathoms, everything that came up in the dredge was new and led to fundamental discoveries as to the deposits forming on the floor of the ocean, still it may be claimed that the foundations of the science were laid by various explorers of the ocean at much earlier dates. Aristotle, who took all knowledge for his province, was an early oceanographer on the shores of Asia Minor. When Pytheas passed between the pillars of Hercules into the unknown Atlantic and penetrated to British seas in the fourth century B.C., and brought back reports of Ultima Thule and of a sea to the north thick and sluggish like a jelly-fish, he may have been recording an early planktonic observation. But passing over all such and many other early records of phenomena of the sea, we come to surer ground in claiming, as founders of oceanography, Count Marsili, an early investigator of the Mediterranean, and that truly scientific navigator Captain James Cook, who sailed to the South Pacific on a transit of Venus expedition in 1769 with Sir Joseph Banks as naturalist, and by subsequently circumnavigating the South Sea about latitude 60° finally disproved the existence of a great southern continent; and Sir James Clerk Ross, who, with Sir Joseph Hooker as naturalist, first dredged the Antarctic in 1840.

The use of the naturalist's dredge (introduced by O. F. Müller, the Dane, in 1799) for exploring the sea-bottom was brought into prominence almost simultaneously in several countries of northwest Europe-by Henri Milne-Edwards in France in 1830, Michael Sars in Norway in 1835, and our own Edward Forbes in 1832.

The last mentioned genial and many-sided genius was a notable figure in several sections of the British Association from about 1836 onwards, and may fairly be claimed as a pioneer of oceanography. In 1839 he and his friend the anatomist, John Goodsir, were dredging in the Shetland Seas, with results which Forbes made known to the meeting of the British Association at Birmingham that summer, with such good effect that a "Dredging Committee" of the association was formed to continue the good work. Valuable reports on the discoveries of that committee appear in our volumes at intervals during the subsequent twenty-five years.

It has happened over and over again in history that the British Association, by means of one of its research committees, has led the way in some important research or development of science and has shown the government or an industry what wants doing and how it can be done. We may fairly claim that the British Association has inspired and fostered that exploration of British seas which through marine biological investigations and deep-sea expeditions has led on to modern oceanography. Edward Forbes and the British Association Dredging Committee, Wyville Thomson, Carpenter, Gwyn Jeffreys, Norman and other naturalists of the pre-Challenger days-all these men in the quarter-century from 1840 onwards worked under research committees of the British Association, bringing their results before successive meetings; and some of our older volumes enshrine classic reports on dredging by Forbes, McAndrew, Norman, Brady, Alder, and other notable naturalists of that day. These local researchers paved the way for the Challenger and other national deep-sea expeditions. Here, as in other cases, it required private enterprise to precede and stimulate government action.

It is probable that Forbes and his fellowworkers on this "Dredging Committee" in their marine explorations did not fully realize that they were opening up a most comprehensive and important department of knowledge. But it is also true that in all his expeditions

in the British seas from the Channel Islands to the Shetlands, in Norway, in the Mediterranean as far as the Egean 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 active 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 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 physicochemical characters of the sea, such as variations 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 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 DeepSea 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 Royal 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 Porcupine in the two succeeding years, for the purpose of exploring the deep water of the Atlantic 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 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 sciencewere epoch-making, inasmuch as they not only opened up this new region to the systematic marine biologist, but gave glimpses of worldwide 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 demonstrated the abundance of life of a varied nature 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 Tertiary periods.

It is interesting to recall that our association played its part in promoting the movement that led to the Challenger Expedition. Our general committee at the Edinburgh meeting of 1871 recommended that the president and council be authorized to cooperate with the

Royal Society in promoting "a Circumnavigation Expedition, specially fitted out to carry the Physical and Biological Exploration of the Deep Sea into all the Great Oceanic Areas"; and our council subsequently appointed a committee consisting of Dr. Carpenter, Professor Huxley and others to cooperate with the Royal Society in carrying out these objects.

It has been said that the Challenger Expedition will rank in history with the voyages of Vasco da Gama, Columbus, Magellan and Cook. Like these it added new regions of the globe to our knowledge, and the wide expanses thus opened up for the first time, the floors of the oceans, though less accessible, are vaster than the discoveries of any previous exploration.

Sir Wyville Thomson, although leader of the expedition, did not live to see the completed results, and Sir John Murray will be remembered in the history of science as the Challenger naturalist who brought to a successful issue the investigation of the enormous collections and the publication of the scientific results of that memorable voyage: these two Scots share the honor of having guided the destinies of what is still the great est oceanographic exploration of all times.

In addition to taking his part in the general work of the expedition, Murray devoted special attention to three subjects of primary importance in the science of the sea, viz.: (1) the plankton or floating life of the oceans, (2) the deposits forming on the sea bottoms, and (3) the origin and mode of formation of coral reefs and islands. It was characteristic of his broad and synthetic outlook on nature that, in place of working at the speciography and anatomy of some group of organisms, however novel, interesting and attractive to the naturalist the deep-sea organisms might seem to be, he took up wide-reaching general problems with economic and geological as well as biological applications.

Each of the three main lines of investigation-deposits, plankton and coral reefswhich Murray undertook on board the Challenger has been most fruitful of results both in his own hands and those of others. His plank

ton work has led on to those modern planktonic researches which are closely bound up with the scientific investigation of our seafisheries.

His work on the deposits accumulating on the floor of the ocean resulted, after years of study in the laboratory as well as in the field, in collaboration with the Abbé Renard of the Brussels Museum, afterwards professor at Ghent, in the production of the monumental "Deep-Sea Deposits" volume, one of the Challenger Reports, which first revealed to the scientific world the detailed nature and distribution of the varied submarine deposits of the globe and their relation to the rocks forming the crust of the earth.

These studies led, moreover, to one of the romances of science which deeply influenced Murray's future life and work. In accumulating material from all parts of the world and all deep-sea exploring expeditions for comparison with the Challenger series, some ten years later, Murray found that a sample of rock from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, which had been sent to him by Commander (now Admiral) Aldrich, of H.M.S. Egeria, was composed of a valuable phosphatic material. This discovery in Murray's hands gave rise to a profitable commercial undertaking, and he was able to show that some years ago the British Treasury had already received in royalties and taxes from the island considerably more than the total cost of the Challenger Expedition.

That first British circumnavigating expedition on the Challenger was followed by other national expeditions (the American Tuscarora and Albatross, the French Travailleur, the German Gauss, National and Valdivia, the Italian Vettor Pisani, the Dutch Siboga, the Danish Thor and others) and by almost equally celebrated and important work by unofficial oceanographers such as Alexander Agassiz, Sir John Murray with Dr. Hjort in the Michael Sars, and the Prince of Monaco in his magnificent ocean-going yacht, and by much other good work by many investigators in smaller and humbler vessels. One of these supplementary expeditions I must refer to briefly because of its connection with sea-fisheries. The

Triton, under Tizard and Murray, in 1882, while exploring the cold and warm areas of the Faroe Channel separated by the Wyville-Thomson ridge, incidentally discovered the famous Dubh-Artach fishing grounds, which have been worked by British trawlers ever since.

Notwithstanding all this activity during the last forty years since oceanography became a science, much has still to be investigated in all seas in all branches of the subject. On pursuing any line of investigation one very soon comes up against a wall of the unknown or a maze of controversy. Peculiar difficulties surround the subject. The matters investigated are often remote and almost inaccessible. Unknown factors may enter into every problem. The samples required may be at the other end of a rope or a wire eight or ten miles long, and the oceanographer may have to grope for them literally in the dark and under other difficult conditions which make it uncertain whether his samples when obtained are adequate and representative, and whether they have undergone any change since leaving their natural environment. It is not surprising then that in the progress of knowledge mistakes have been made and corrected, that views have been held on what seemed good scientific grounds which later on were proved to be erroneous. For example, Edward Forbes, in his division of life in the sea into zones, on what seemed to be sufficiently good observations in the Ægean, but which we now know to be exceptional, placed the limit of life at 300 fathoms, while Wyville Thompson and his fellow-workers on the Porcupine and Challenger showed that there is no azoic zone even in the great abysses.

Or, again, take the celebrated myth of "Bathybius." In the 'sixties of last century samples of Atlantic mud, taken when surveying the bottom for the first telegraph cables and preserved in alcohol, were found when examined by Huxley, Haeckel and others to contain what seemed to be an exceedingly primitive protoplasmic organism, which was supposed on good evidence to be widely extended over the floor of the ocean. The discovery of this Bathybius was said to solve the problem

of how deep-sea animals were nourished in the absence of seaweeds. Here was a widespread protoplasmic meadow up which other organisms could graze. Belief in Bathybius seemed to be confirmed and established by Wyville Thomson's results in the Porcupine Expedition of 1869, but was exploded by the naturalists in the Challenger some five years later. Buchanan in his recently published

Accounts Rendered" tells us how he and his colleague Murray were keenly on the look-out for hours at a time on all possible occasions for traces of this organism, and how they finally proved, in the spring of 1875 on the voyage between Hong-Kong and Yokohama, that the all pervading substance like coagulated mucus was an amorphous precipitate of sulphate of lime thrown down from the seawater in the mud on the addition of a certain proportion of alcohol. He wrote to this effect from Japan to Professor Crum Brown, and it is in evidence that after receiving this letter Crum Brown interested his friends in Edinburgh by showing them how to make Bathybius in the chemical laboratory. Huxley at the Sheffield meeting of the British Association in 1879 handsomely admitted that he had been mistaken, and it is said that he characterized Bathybius as "not having fulfilled the promise of its youth." oceanographic beliefs bius in the future? they do they may well have been useful steps in the progress of science. Although like Bathybius they may not have fulfilled the promise of their youth, yet, we may add, they will not have lived in the minds of man in vain.

Will any of our present share the fate of BathySome may, but even if

Many of the phenomena we encounter in oceanographic investigations are so complex, are or may be affected by so many diverse factors, that it is difficult, if indeed possible, to be sure that we are unravelling them aright and that we see the real causes of what we observe.

Some few things we know approximatelynothing completely. We know that the greatest depths of the ocean, about six miles, are a little greater than the highest mountains on land, and Sir John Murray has calculated that

if all the land were washed down into the sea the whole globe would be covered by an ocean averaging about two miles in depth. We know the distribution of temperatures and salinities over a great part of the surface and a good deal of the botton of the oceans, and some of the more important oceanic currents have been charted and their periodic variations, such as those of the Gulf Stream, are being studied. We know a good deal about the organisms floating or swimming in the surface waters (the epi-plankton), and also those brought up by our dredges and trawls from the bottom in many parts of the world-although every expedition still makes large additions to knowledge. The region that is least known to us, both in its physical conditions and also its inhabitants, is the vast zone of intermediate waters lying between the upper few hundred fathoms and the bottom. That is the region that Alexander Agassiz from his observations with closing tow-nets on the Blake Expedition supposed to be destitute of life, or at least, as modified by his later observations on the Albatross, to be relatively destitute compared with the surface and the bottom, in opposition to the contention of Murray and other oceanographers that an abundant meso-plankton was present, and that certain groups of animals, such as the Challengerida and some kinds of Medusa, were characteristic of these deeper zones. I believe that, as sometimes happens in scientific controversies, both sides were right up to a point, and both could support their views upon observations from particular regions of the ocean under certain circumstances.

But much still remains unknown or only imperfectly known even in matters that have long been studied and where practical applications of great value are obtained-such as the investigation and prediction of tidal phenomena. We are now told that theories require re-investigation and that published tables are not sufficiently accurate. To take another practical application of oceanographic work, the ultimate causes of variations in the abundance, in the sizes, in the movements and in the qualities of the fishes of our coastal industries are still to seek, and not withstand

ing volumes of investigation and a still greater volume of discussion, no man who knows anything of the matter is satisfied with our present knowledge of even the best-known and economically most important of our fishes such as the herring, the cod, the plaice and the salmon.

Take the case of our common fresh-water eel as an example of how little we know and at the same time of how much has been discovered. All the eels of our streams and lakes of N.-W. Europe live and feed and grow under our eyes without reproducing their kind-no spawning eel has ever been seen. After living for years in immaturity, at last near the end of their lives the large male and female yellow eels undergo a change in appearance and in nature. They acquire a silvery color and their eyes enlarge, and in this bridal attire they commence the long journey which ends in maturity, reproduction and death. From all the fresh waters they migrate in the autumn to the coast, from the inshore seas to the open ocean and still westward and south to the mid-Atlantic and we know not how much further-for the exact locality and manner of spawning has still to be discovered. The youngest known stages of the Leptocephalus, the larval stage of eels, have been found by the Dane, Dr. Johannes Schmidt, to the west of the Azores where the water is over 2,000 fathoms in depth. These were about one third of an inch in length and were probably not long hatched. I can not now refer to all the able investigators-Grassi, Hjort and others-who have discovered and traced the stages of growth of the Leptocephalus and its metamorphosis into the "elvers" or young eels which are carried by the North Atlantic drift back to the coasts of Europe and ascend our rivers in spring in countless myriads but no man has been more indefatigable and successful in the quest than Dr. Schmidt, who in the various expeditions of the Danish Investigation Steamer Thor from 1904 onwards found successively younger and younger stages, and who is during the present summer engaged in a traverse of the Atlantic to the West Indies in the hope of