1841

On Marine Life Through the Full Range of Oceanic Depths

"It was interesting amongst those creatures to recognize several that I had been in the habit of taking in equally high northern latitudes; and, although contrary to the general belief of naturalists, I have no doubt that from however great a depth we may be able to bring up mud and stones of the bed of the ocean, we shall find them teeming with animal life; the extreme pressure at the greatest depth does not appear to affect these creatures; hitherto we have not been able to determine this point beyond a thousand fathoms, but from that depth shellfish have been brought up with the mud.”

In Antarctica (1841) by Sir James Clark Ross. pp. 202-203. As quoted by John Murray, of the Challenger Expedition, in “The Exploration of the Antarctic Regions,” The Scottish Geographical Magazine, Vol. II, No. IX, September 1886. p. 542.

1843-1

Controlling Factors for Marine Life

"The distribution of marine animals is determined by three great primary influences, and modified by several secondary or local ones. The primary influences are climate, sea-composition and depth, corresponding to the three great primary influences which determine the distribution of land animals, namely climate, mineral structure and elevation....“The secondary influences which modify the distribution of animals in the Aegean are many. First in importance ranks the character of the sea-bottom, which, though uniform in the lowest explored region, is very variable in all the others. According as rock, sand, mud, weedy or gravelly ground prevails, so will the numbers of the several genera and species vary....” In “Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean Sea, and on their distribution , considered as bearing on Geology.”

(1843) by E. Forbes. Published in Report of the Thirteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Cork in August 1843. Published by J. Murray, London. p. 152.

1843-2

The Zero of Animal Life at 300 Fathoms

"Zero of Animal Life probably about 300 fathoms.” Espoused by Edward Forbes in a Diagram of Regions of Depth in the Aegean Sea.

In Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean Sea, and on their distribution, considered as bearing on Geology by E. Forbes. Published in Report of the Thirteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Cork in August 1843. Published by J. Murray, London. pp. 169-170.

1843-3

Lack of Living Fossil Forms in the Deep-Sea

"The result of the examination of the Aegean fauna does not hold out much prospect of the discovery of any more extinct forms in a living state.... To those who have looked forward to the finding of lost forms in the greater depths of the sea, the catalogues I here present to the Association must be unsatisfactory; for though two or three such have occurred, the majority of species in the great depths are either described existing forms, or altogether new. The zero of animal life in depth has been too nearly approached to hold out further hopes.”

In “Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean Sea, and on their distribution, considered as bearing on Geology.” (1843) by E. Forbes. Published in Report of the Thirteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Cork in August 1843. Published by J. Murray, London. p. 175.

1851

Louis Agassiz on the Florida Reefs

"Hence the extraordinary assemblage of all classes of animals upon the reef, where, besides those particular kinds of corals which contribute largely to its formation, we find upon it, or on the foundation from which it rises, a great variety of other corals, which, though too insignificant in size to take a conspicuous part in building up these extensive accumulations of organic lime-rock, add none the less their small share in the work, contributing especially to fill up the vacant spaces left by the more rapid and durable growth of the larger kinds. They are to the giants of the reef what the more slender parts are to the lords of the forest, adding the elegance and delicacy of slighter forms to the strength, power, and durability of their loftier companions.”

In "Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast," in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November, 1851 (1852) L. Agassiz. Printed by Robert Armstrong, Washington. p. 151.

On Building the Reef

“All these animals and plants contribute, more or less, to augment the mass of solid materials which is accumulating upon the reef, and increase its size. Not only are the hard parts of shells, echinoderms, worms, or their broken fragments, heaped among the detritus of the corals, but occasionally even the bones of fishes and turtles, which are very numerous along the reef, may be found in the coral formations."

"The decaying soft parts of all these animals undoubtedly have their influence upon the chemical process, by which the limestone particles of their solid frame are cemented together, in the formation of compact rocks."

In "Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast," in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November, 1851 (1852) L. Agassiz. Printed by Robert Armstrong, Washington. p. 151-152.

The Formation of the Keys

“A careful survey of the character of the rocks in the keys affords satisfactory evidence that they have been formed at whatever height they may rise , by the same action which is now going on upon the reef--that is, by the accumulation of loose materials above the water-level. That part of the keys which rises above the level of the water is, therefore, a sub-aerial and not a submarine accumulation of floating matter, thrown above high-water mark by the tempestuous action of the water. We insist upon the fact, that the keys furnish in themselves, by the internal structure of their rock, the fullest evidence that they have been formed above high-water mark by the action of gales and hurricanes, instead of having grown as a reef up to the water-level, and been subsequently raised to their present height.”

In "Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast," in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November, 1851 (1852) L. Agassiz. Printed by Robert Armstrong, Washington. p. 153.

Good Advice for Humankind

“I may say that here, as in most cases where the operations of nature interfere with the designs of man, it is not by a direct intervention on our part that we may remedy the difficulties, but rather by a precise knowledge of their causes, which may enable us, if not to check, at least to avoid the evil consequences.”

In "Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast," in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November, 1851 (1852) L. Agassiz. Printed by Robert Armstrong, Washington. p. 158.

The Southern Boundary of the North American Continent

“But unless some great revolution in nature modifies the present relative level between land and sea, it may safely be maintained that the present outer reef is the final southern boundary of the North American continent.”

In "Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast," in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November, 1851 (1852) L. Agassiz. Printed by Robert Armstrong, Washington. p. 159.

The Value of Science in the Affairs of Man

“These practical results--for so we venture to call the general conclusions last presented-- although they are purely scientific deductions from general principles, may satisfy the most obstinate supporters of the matter-of-fact side of all questions, of the advantages of scientific illustrations in the daily walks of life, and also justify the course which has been followed with so much success by the Coast Survey, in combining the strictest scientific methods with its practical operation.”

In "Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast," in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November, 1851 (1852) L. Agassiz. Printed by Robert Armstrong, Washington. p. 159-160.

1853

Observations on Life at Great Depth and Questioning Edward Forbes

"Dear Sir: I have in hands, now, specimens of bottom from t he Gulf Stream, obtained by Lieutenant Craven, and I can say that they are among the most interesting that I have ever seen. You recollect that I said in my reports, that with the increase in depth -- in the greater depths -- the number of individuals appeared to increase. The greatest depth from which I had seen specimens was between two hundred and three hundred fathoms. There the sand contained, perhaps, 50 per cent, of foraminiferae, in bulk. The specimens now before me go to 1,050 fathoms: and there it is no longer sand containing foraminiferae, but foraminiferae containing a little or no sand. The grains of sand have to be searched for carefully, under the microscope to be noticed at all. The species are the same as found in the deeper soundings in Section II, but the specimens look fresher, and appear somewhat larger. The Globigerina rubra of d’Orbigney, which forms the majority, has frequently that delicate pink color to which it owes its name, but I cannot recollect to have noticed in more northern specimens. There are also some pieces of coral and dead shells from the depth of 1,050 fathoms. The corals do not look much worn, but still appear to have been dead. There are some delicate shells of molluscs from depths beyond 500 fathoms, where they were certainly living."

"A few interesting remarks suggest themselves from the above examination; but before passing over to them the following question has to be answered: Are these small animals actually living in the localities from which they were obtained, or have they gradually been washed down from the reefs near which the current has passed? I feel inclined to answer that they were living where found, from the fact that the greater number of the individuals are perfect, not withstanding the great delicacy of their shell. The delicate pink color of the Globigerinae would scarcely be preserved in specimens transported from a distance."

"The best argument for this opinion is, perhaps, that the same species are found in a perfect state as far north as the state of New Jersey and New York. It is very singular, however, that the same species should also be found living on the shores of Cuba, and of some of the other West India islands, under exceedingly different circumstances of light and temperature."

"If we admit their living in the great depths where we have found them in such abundance, we are enabled to extend the limits of animal life to a much greater depth than is usually admitted. Prof. Edward Forbes, in his report on the distribution of Mollusca and Radiata in the Aegean sea, (Reports of the British Association, 1843,) supposes that in depths beyond 300 fathoms animal life does not exist. In a former report on this subject (Proceedings American Association, Charleston meeting) I remarked that the Globigerina rubra seemed to increase in abundance with depth. I had then seen specimens from depths not exceeding 267 fathoms, and its greatest abundance did not exceed about 50 per cent of the mass. We have now found a maximum of its occurrence at a depth of 1,050 fathoms, where this and allied forms constitute the entire bottom. It is but reasonable to suppose that still deeper explorations would show a gradual decrease for a considerable depth before it should cease to appear, as was shown for other species living in more shallow water in the r eport alluded to."

"In concluding I would remark, how important a knowledge of the habitation and distribution of the foraminiferae is for geologists; since, of all classes of the animal kingdom none has contributed so large a share to the formation of rocks, at least in the cretaceous and tertiary formations. . .”

In "Extracts from Letters of Louis F. Pourtales, Esq." (assistant in the Coast Survey, to the Superintendent, upon the examination of specimens of bottom obtained in the exploration of the Gulf Stream by Lieuts. Comg. T. A. M. Craven and J. N. Maffitt, U. S. Navy, assistants in the Coast Survey). Published in Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey for 1853, Appendix No. 30, pp. 82-83.

1859-1

Britain's Saline Empire

"Moreover it is becoming the Britons, whether scientific or unscientific, who boast at all fitting occasions of their aptitude to rule the waves, should know something of the population of their saline empire, especially of those parts of it immediately in contact with their terrestrial domain, and the coasts of the Continent to which our United Kingdom appertains.”

In The Natural History of the European Seas (1859) by E. Forbes, posthumously. Published by John Van Voorst, London. p. 3.

1859-2

Naturalists   Ancient and Modern

"Moreover it is becoming the Britons, whether scientific or unscientific, who boast at all fitting occasions of their aptitude to rule the waves, should know something of the population of their saline empire, especially of those parts of it immediately in contact with their terrestrial domain, and the coasts of the Continent to which our United Kingdom appertains.”

In The Natural History of the European Seas (1859) by E. Forbes, posthumously. Published by John Van Voorst, London. p. 3.

1859-3

A Sobering Thought

"Palaeontological research exhibits, beyond question, the phenomenon of provinces in time, as well as provinces in space. Moreover, all our knowledge of organic remains teaches us, that species have a definite existence, and a centralization in geological time as well as in geographical space, and that no species is repeated in time.”

In The Natural History of the European Seas (1859) by E. Forbes, posthumously. Published by John Van Voorst, London. p. 10.

1859-4

Life Decreasing in the Depths

"As we descend deeper and deeper in this region its inhabitants become more and more modified, and fewer and fewer, indicating our approach towards an abyss where life is either extinguished , or exhibits but a few sparks to mark its lingering presence.”

In The Natural History of the European Seas (1859) by E. Forbes, posthumously. Published by John Van Voorst, London. p. 26-27.

1859-5

Man's Capacity to Destroy Life in the Sea

"But the whale has his diminishers as well as his magnifiers, and his bigness cannot save him from destruction.... But whale’s blubber cannot put up with incessant persecution any more than human flesh, and the golden mine of the Spitzbergen seas has been exhausted. Well on to two centuries and a half have passed away since the whale fishery was commenced by English enterprise in the Spitzbergen seas .... In 1840 ... Professor Jameson ... states that ‘the whale fisheries between Spitzbergen and Greenland are abandoned. Fishers now prefer Davis Straits, Baffin’s Bay, or the seas to the east of Greenland.’ Davis Straits is now likely to be deserted, and the whale fishery is diminishing, the number of whaleships decreasing yearly. Thus has the activity of man done much towards rendering one of the mightiest of living animals well nigh extinct. If this fishery be pursued for a century longer, the Greenland whale may take its station with creatures that have been."

"The rorqual, or, fin-whales, still hold their places in these seas. Their rapid movements defy the efforts of human enemies, though probably all their activity would be of little avail were they sufficiently remunerative for the trouble of killing them....”

In The Natural History of the European Seas (1859) by E. Forbes, posthumously. Published by John Van Voorst, London. p. 36-37.

1923

On Farming the Sea

"Aquiculture [early spelling] is as susceptible of scientific treatment as agriculture can be; and the fisherman who has been in the past too much of the nomad and the hunter, if not, indeed, the devastating raider, must become in the future the settled farmer of the sea if his harvest is to be less precarious ....”

In Founders of Oceanography and Their Work (1923) by Sir W. Herdman. Published by London, Edward Arnold & Co. p. 279-280.

1926

The Circle of Life

In transiting to the Galapagos Islands, William Beebe encountered a collision of currents, a great linear "rip" that was the locus of myriad forms of marine life. In describing the relationship between the animals and plants of this "rip," Beebe began with the plankton:
"These last helpless ones have been given the name plankton, which is appropriate, for when the Greeks used it, they meant Wanderer. Here we saw what must have amounted to many, many tons of these minute beings - diminutive crustaceans, both adult and larval, the myriad species of jellyfish and pelagic mollusks, worms, larval fishes, single-celled animals such as those which light up the sea at night, and jolly little friends, the flying snails. Where these are gathered together in numbers, there will the self-determined fish be, tiny little chaps who dash about and feed upon the living soup of the sea. These in turn attract middle-sized fish, and these still larger ones. This would seem like a straight line - a linear chain of life, but it is, in reality, a great segment of a curve, the circle being completed when one of the great marauders dies, and furnishes food, not only for his former victims, but for the minute creatures that he would have disdained as nourishment."

In The Arcturus Adventure by (1926) William Beebe. Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. p. 51.

1932

Plankton Nets Versus Deepsea Dredging

".... Standing in the waste of the ship we see curious nets hanging from the whale-boat platforms. These long cones of silk bolting-cloth are used to collect plankton. They are towed from the ship during oceanographic stations, and may be lowered to any depth desired."

"It is true that the lack of fishing and dredging equipment deprived us of the excitement of bringing up fantastically shaped monsters from the deep. But in the plankton-nets we can catch a hundred bizarre forms to every one recovered from a dredge; we can find animals painted with the colors of the rainbow, whereas the deep-sea organisms are either black or red. Anyone who has once seen these exquisite creatures through a microscope will never again envy the man with a deep-sea dredge.”

In The Last Cruise of the Carnegie (1932) by J. H. Paul. Published by The Williams and Wilkins Co., Baltimore. p. 44.

1941

The Role of the Steamer Albatross in the Biological Exploration of the Sea: A Eulogy

"Of all the ships that have been devoted to biological explorations of the sea, none has surpassed the endeavors conducted on board the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries steamer Albatross, during her 39 years of service from 1882 to 1921.”

In “Dr. Hugh M. Smith, Director of the Philippine Cruise of the Albatross," by Dr. Paul Bartsch of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, published in Copeia (1941) 4: 209.

1951

The Sea Within Us

"When they went ashore the animals that took up a land life carried with them a part of the sea in their bodies, a heritage which they passed on to their children and which even today links each land animal with its origin in the ancient sea. Fish, amphibian, and reptile, warm-blooded bird and mammal - each of us carries in our veins a salty stream in which the elements sodium, potassium, and calcium are combined in almost the same proportions as in sea water. This is our inheritance from the day, untold millions of years ago, when a remote ancestor, having progressed from the one-celled stage, first developed a circulatory system in which the fluid was merely the water of the sea. In the same way, our lime-hardened skeletons are a heritage from the calcium-rich ocean of Cambrian time. Even the protoplasm that streams within each cell of our bodies has the chemical structure impressed upon all living matter when the first simple creatures were brought forth in the ancient sea. And as life itself began in the sea, so each of us begins his individual life in a miniature ocean within his mother’s womb, and in the stages of his embryonic development repeats the steps by which his race evolved, from gill-breathing inhabitants of a water world to creatures able to live on land.”

In The Sea Around Us (1951) by R. Carson. Published by Oxford University Press, New York. p. 13-14.

1966

The Potential of the Self-Renewing Resources of the Sea

"Today man is a hunter of food in the sea, even as his ancestors were hunters of food on land. On land, however, he has by now learned to raise livestock and to farm his fields. He has become a farmer rather than a hunter. Not until he becomes a farmer of the seas, until he is as well versed in ‘aquaculture’ as he now is in agriculture, will he begin to realize the great potential of the self-renewing food resources of the global seas.”

In Deep Challenge (1966) by H. B. Stewart. Published by Van Nostrand, Princeton, New Jersey. p. 14.