Julien Thoulet

“ Over the open page of an atlas we dreamed, traversing the seas from the Tropics to the Poles, braving tempests and eternal ice, gathering incalculable treasures of poetic, thought, the consolation and often the strength of our mature age, which, after many years, dissipated, scattered in light smoke by the wind of the tempests of life, terrible and implacable as those of the ocean, reduced to no more than the humble denier, the widow's mite, remain still the joy and blessing of old age, which advances upon us with giant strides. ”

“ What he has done gives him courage to complete his task; the victory he has won over fatigue and obstacles is the warrant of his victory over the fatigues and difficulties of the future. He gathers new ardor, strength, and hope. Is not this traveler like the man of science in his journey, laborious and painful as is all travail, toward the distant truth which, in his short life, he is certain never to reach? ”

“ Oceanography has to do then, directly or indirectly, with a multitude of sciences and, more than any other, with geology. The present is at the same time the key of the past and of the future, especially in natural history. Man, in his investigations, works from the known to the unknown, from what he can see with his eyes, touch with his hands, measure with his instruments, to that of which he can perceive only the results; from phenomena present before him to those which were accomplished thousands of centuries ago. ”

“ After so many unexpected discoveries, our epoch leaves it no longer in doubt that the greatest poets are sometimes the scientists.
The laws of meteorology present an important practical interest because they lead up to the forecasting of the weather. There is no need to dwell upon the profit humanity may derive from such a discovery. How many misfortunes will be averted for the agriculturist! Navigation will feel no less benefit if it can know in advance the regions of calm, of contrary or favorable winds. How many voyages will be shortened, how many lives saved! ”

“ He who feels himself separated only by a few planks from moving abysses, where his gaze sees nothing when, profiting by the hollows in the waves, he tries to penetrate their depths, realizes that terrible forces too vast to be conquered by any human power surround and rule him, and that brute force avails nothing; it is necessary to call to his aid skill and science. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We profit by the sea as savages profit by the earth, when, according to the famous simile, finding a fruit tree in the forest they cut it down to gather its fruit. We have no complete and detailed map, not even a mediocre one, of the sea bottom, nor have we any exact ideas of the variations in temperature, in density, in salinity, along our coasts; we have not calculated the amount of sediment deposited by any of our great rivers; we are ignorant to what depth currents are felt and, except for a very small number of localities, as to their direction on the surface ”

“ When a traveler, overcome by the long and painful ascent of a mountain, finally reaches the summit, he finds it pleasant to him to sit on a rock and, while recovering from his fatigue, contemplate the plain which he has crossed, the river whose windings he has followed and which at this moment spreads out below him, and also the difficult, even dangerous, ground, the sand, the marshes, over which he has come with great exertion. ”

“ Little by little, aided by the progress of chemistry and physics, the need of exactitude is making itself felt everywhere. We are applying it to oceanography. Realizing that it is indispensable to measure, we are no longer content to describe. We invent instruments, make chemical analyses, record figures, which are condensed facts, and true science, methodical and useful, is being evolved. At the head of each chapter on oceanography is found the name of a man of genius or of talent and an instrument. The currents of the sea have Franklin and the thermometer ”

“ The true father of oceanography is the Gulf Stream. It seems as if men had invented the science solely to explain this current, which even to-day is the most studied and best known of the phenomena of the ocean. ”

“ It is necessary to know the history of a science to understand those works with which it deals and to foresee those which remain for it to accomplish. Let us now show in the history of oceanography how its development has been influenced by different sciences and how it has influenced in its turn numerous others and their applications. It is the same in every stage of the intellectual improvement of humanity. ”

“ How useful it would be to know the probable regions of calms and of storms, the strength and the direction of the currents, and the mutual connection of the phenomena of the earth, the heavens, and the waters, so that when one of them has been examined the other may be foreseen, and if it is to be feared, conquered. The more humanity advanced the more the sum of its known facts increased, the more indispensable it became to coordinate them, the more legend and empiricism became transformed into science. ”

“ Every improvement is simplification, and the men who cry unceasingly for simplicity are as if appalled when they come upon it unawares.
But if the presence or absence of a fish is so difficult to determine except by long and expensive trials, it is not so with the condition of the environment, which can be estimated and even recorded in figures, by means of instruments; temperature by the thermometer, density and salinity by the areometer, depth by the sounding line, the nature of the bottom by a lithological or chemical analysis. ”

“ 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 the skate lives in mud, the sole in sand, and the gurnet among the rocks; zoology seeks to learn how temperature and salinity are distributed in the water; the telegraph industry needs very precise topo- graphic charts of the bottoms where it proposes to lay its cables. Discoveries multiply and every science develops with each generation of men. ”

“ The younger nations are profiting by the experience of their elders and inherit the improvements made in older times; they are endowed from birth with wealth of incalculable value inherited from former generations. They enter into action with the ardor, the boldness, and power of youth, and consequently with its success. They take the first rank, or will do so. They traverse in a few years all the phases which others took many centuries to pass through. In oceanography they undertake voyages of discovery, make geography, pure science, generalize, find practical applications. ”

“ All maritime nations contribute to its development, no less from the theoretical point of view,, for its great benefit to the human mind, whose right and duty it is to seek to know all things, than from the practical point of view of the material advantages to be derived from it; for the contest between man and nature, growing always more severe, makes it imperative that no force be left unproductive. France established oceanography. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For a long time geology advanced in a rut out of which oceanography has forced it perhaps a little against its inclination. Old people and old sciences have their habits and a dislike to change, but old sciences, more fortunate than man, can grow young again.
Rocks are of igneous or metamorphic and of sedimentary origin. The former are the object of the researches of a special science, petrography, which studies their intimate nature and all the different branches of knowledge which relate to eruptive phenomena. ”

“ As soon as a science is almost complete another replaces it, or perhaps two or three are founded together, for we see that natural manifestations, believed to be of a different order, are dependent in reality on the same law. Evolution is going on. Mineralogy is only a chapter of physics and chemistry; chemistry grew out of physics; physics grew out of mathematics; natural history is differentiating into groups and sciences; paleontology becomes paleozoology, a chapter of zoology, and paleobotany a section of botany; stratigraphic geology is paleoceanography and paleogeography ”

“ The vessel, having lost her sight, makes use of feeling. To draw up bathymetrical and lithological charts is one of the principal objects of oceanography.
Oceanography has to maritime fisheries a relation still more important, if that is possible, than to geology, meteorology, and navigation, for this industry is related closely to the very life of nations. In France we have more than 86,000 marine fishermen, while more than 200,000 people derive, directly or indirectly, their means of existence from fishing; as, for instance, the men and women employed in the canning factories. ”

“ Ideas became more serious; poetry and fancy gave way to science, which is in itself poetry and fancy. The intelligence of a man, following its natural bent, wished now to group the accumulation of facts in his possession under hypothetical laws, and he went to nature to verify the hypotheses suggested in his laboratory. ”

“ The laws of oceanography are, then, the rational basis for the conduct of fisheries, which have become methodical and consequently scientific, and pisciculture is a kind of agriculture of the sea.
In the harmony between a being and his environment, three cases present themselves: If the harmony is perfect, the being, finding the utmost satisfaction for his needs, develops and multiplies; if it is only partial, the being who suffers it becomes rare ”

“ The Renaissance began to make its influence felt throughout all Europe. There was a universal awakening of curiosity, of science, of ambition, of life; that is to say, of desire of enjoyment and of gold. There are such periods of fermentation in the lives of individuals as in those of nations. Their primary wants were satisfied, they desired more. The earth was divided among different races, each race divided into peoples, the peoples into provinces, the provinces into villages, hamlets, castles, all hostile to one another, warring, fighting, massacring, and being massacred. ”

“ Fogs due to analogous causes—that is to say, to marine currents—are frequent in the northern or even the temperate region, on the North Sea, the English Channel, and on the Atlantic coasts of England and France. Everywhere they are the terror of sailors; ships move in them bewildered, advancing at the risk of running ashore or colliding with another vessel, while if they remain stationary they are in danger of being themselves struck, and in any case they lose time, that precious commodity whose price rises higher every day. ”

“ If we then verify, first in a lake, then in the ocean, each of the laws discovered in the laboratory; if we determine that in the latter they are simply multiplied by a number, the constant coefficient of increase, we shall refute the critics. If there is a disagreement, we are apprised of the influence of some variable of which we have not taken account; and it will be necessary, after having discovered it, to experiment on it in turn. ”

“ Oceanography came in without noise. The human mind naturally seeks causes for that which is seen, or to better recollect them after they are discovered or even surmised, because of its very weakness it hastens to deduce laws for them. ”

“ Just as the thirst for discoveries was assuaged because there was nothing more to discover, the thirst for natural curiosities diminished and in its turn disappeared. Many grew tired of being enthusiastic, of admiring, when they thought that they had seen everything ”

“ He distinguishes each error that he has committed. If, then, turning round, he looks down the other slope of the mountain, he sees what road he must follow to arrive surely and promptly at the end of his journey, visible afar in the mist of the horizon. ”

“ Other experiments no less interesting have been made in the laboratory of pisciculture in Flödevig. The Norwegians live by the sea; they are obliged to cultivate it, and, in fact, they declare that they have succeeded in restocking it with cod. Their processes are now being applied at Newfoundland by the English. It has been observed that the spawn of the cod must be raised in water of a certain temperature and density. If the water is too dense the young fish are not sufficiently strong to overcome its resistance and seek food on the bottom ”

“ Still plunged in lamentable ignorance and regardless of the information obtained by careful scientific experiments, we ravage our coasts, and statistics show that the fishing industry is incapable of furnishing daily bread to those who practice it at the cost of so much trouble, fatigue, and danger. ”

“ In dynamic oceanography the ocean is studied in motion. We study the waves, which move the surface under the influence of the wind, and the currents, which, like the network of our arteries and veins, traverse its mass to a certain depth, and result from the simultaneous actions of heat, evaporation, the topography of the sea bottom, the geographic configuration of the surrounding continents, the climate, the force of the winds ”