Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/313

Rh or in its city. He surely would fare ill at Wesleyan University who said "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" and "Beware of the scribes which . . . for a pretence make long prayers; these shall receive greater damnation." The trustees of Wesleyan University still have the opportunity to decline to accept the resignation of the professor of economics and social science. The other honorable alternative is to change the name of the institution to the "Middletown Methodist College."

as a science may be dated from the voyage of the Challenger round the world from 1872 to 1876 under the scientific direction of Sir Wyville Thomson and the naval command of Sir George Nares. Sir John Murray was one of the naturalists of the expedition and later became editor of the great series of reports. In addition he has published many important papers on oceanography and marine biology and has conducted surveys in marine and inland Scottish waters. Probably Sir John Murray and Alexander Agassiz are the two men who have accomplished the most for marine biology, and it is a cause for pride that both were born on this side of the Atlantic. We may also view with gratification the earlier work of Bache of our coast survey and of Maury of our navy, who in the forties and fifties laid the foundation on which the science of oceanography has been erected. When Sir John Murray visited the United States last year and made a series of extremely interesting addresses in various places, he established a fund in honor of Alexander Agassiz, under the National Academy of Sciences, for a medal to be conferred for distinction in oceanographic research. It should give us pause to reflect that there is none so well deserving this medal as were Dana, Bache, Maury and Agassiz.

In 1909 Sir John Murray—who like Agassiz acquired wealth by an incidental use of his scientific observations —offered to defray the expenses of a cruise of the Michael Sars in the North Atlantic, if the Norwegian government would lend the ship and its scientific staff. The expedition was undertaken with the cooperation of Dr. Johan Hjort, director of Norwegian fisheries. The Michael Sars, named in honor of the naturalist who sixty years ago made dredgings off the coast of Norway, was admirably equipped for deep-sea explorations. Starting from the east of Ireland it worked down to the Canaries and by way of the Azores to New Trinidad and back to Ireland and Bergen. About 120 observing stations were established and much valuable information was obtained, while the biological material has been distributed to specialists in different parts of the world.

A general account of the researches undertaken by the Michael Sars and of the modern science of oceanography has now been prepared by Sir John Murray and Dr. Hjort and has been published by The Macmillan Company. The book contains some 600 illustrations, the portrait of Sir John Murray being here reproduced, and forms an accurate and readable account of what is known in regard to the depths of the oceans of the earth.

of whose death we learned not long ago, was, perhaps as much as any of our times, one of the most noteworthy examples of the best scientific lives of our generation. Sprung from a family with notable scientific traditions for several generations, and gifted with talents in no way inferior to the best of those amongst whom he worked, he employed all the resources at his command for the promotion of the highest interests both of his own subject and of the