Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T09:02:31.747Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Progress in Oceanographical Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2010

G. E. R. Deacon
G. E. R. Deacon
Affiliation:
(Director, The National Institute of Oceanography)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It would be interesting and profitable to look back to see how closely the applications of science to the sea had followed its developments and technical achievements ashore. In contrast to the wealth of literature on the classical geography of the oceans and the achievements of the early voyagers there is no balanced account of the scientific investigation. Such an account would include the work of men like Boyle, who, in his observations and experiments about the saltness of the sea (1672), gave the first satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon, and showed th at it would be necessary to make a great number of observations in different climates and different parts of the world to determine the degrees of saltness with any certainty. He arranged for travellers to collect samples for him. Lavoisier (1772) and Bergman (1777) analysed samples of sea water and named the principal dissolved salts. In 1812, Alexander Marcet, a London physician, made the remarkable discovery that although the total amount of salt varied from place to place according to the balance of evaporation and precipitation, the principal constituents were always present in the same proportions. Although this was almost a premonition based on the analysis of not more than fourteen samples from different parts of the Atlantic Ocean, it has stood the test of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1952 , pp. 168 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1952

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1Franklin, B., and Williams, J. (1792). On the Use of the Thermometer in Navigation. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
2Kohl, J. G. (1893). Ältere Geschichte der Atlantischen Strömungen. Zeitschr. Erdkunde, Berlin.Google Scholar
3Rennell, J. (1832). An Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic Ocean and of those which prevail between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, London.Google Scholar
4Smyth, W. H. (1854). The Mediterranean, London.Google Scholar
5Humboldt, A. v. (1814). Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, Relation Historique, Paris.Google Scholar
6Lenz, E. v. (1847). Bericht über die ozeanischen Temperaturen in verschiedenen Tiefen, Bull. Acad. Sci. Petersburg.Google Scholar
7Maury, M. F. (1855). Physical Geography of the Sea, Washington.Google Scholar
8Thomson, C. W. (1873). Depths of the Sea, London, p. 368.Google Scholar
9Carpenter, W. B., Thomson, C. W., and Croll, J., in Geog. Journal, Nature, and Phil. Mag. London 1870 to 1875, and in 8.Google Scholar
10Krümmel, O. (1911). Handhuch der Ozeanographie, Stuttgart, Vol. II, p. 442.Google Scholar
11Deacon, G. E. R. Applications of oceanographical research to navigation. This Journal, Vol. IV, No. 1, p. 276, 07 1951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar