THE STUDY OF THE SEA.*
Sin WILLIAM HERDMAN, who has done so much for the study of the sea, both at the University of Liverpool and in the well- known biological station at Port Erin, in the Isle of Man, has now written an extremely able and fascinating book, well provided with illustrations, on his great subject. He begins by recalling the great men who within the past century founded the new science of oceanography. Edward Forbes, the Manx naturalist, came first and was followed by Sir C. Wyvillc Thomson, who planned and led the 'Challenger' expedition in the 'seventies, and by Sir John Murray, who completed the compilation of the magnificent ' Challenger ' reports and spent a long life in advancing his favourite studies. Then, too, there were Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-American Professor of Harvard, and his equally famous son Alexander, who made a large fortune in copper-mining and also surveyed a greater expanse of ocean than any other man. Further, there were the late Prince of Monaco, an able scientist and a most generous patron of science, and the late Dr. Anton Dohrn, who founded the .superb Naples biological station largely at his own expense. The author knew most of these men personally and was the intimate friend of Sir John Murray, and his personal reminiscences and judicious esti- mates of the work of the pioneers form a most engaging intro- duction to the subject. He goes on to discuss briefly but very clearly the main topics—currents, especially the Gulf Stream, submarine deposits, coral reefs, and plankton, the floating masses of minute animals on which fishes feed—and concludes with an account of the oyster and mussel fisheries and the sea fisheries and with an earnest plea for the encouragement of our very large but none the less imperfectly developed fishing industry. Sir William Herdman's handling of vexed questions like the Gulf Stream and the formation of coral reefs and islands is singularly impartial ; no one is better qualified than he to decide between the rival authorities. The Gulf Stream problem he regards as to a large extent a matter of terminology ; warm water comes to these shores and to Norway, though it may be only a part of the stream leaving the Gulf of Mexico or may even be distinct from, though affected by, the real Gulf Stream. The concluding chapter on Food Matters in the Sea" reinforces the belief, to which the Spectator has often given expression, that the food supply available in our seas could be greatly increased if we gave as much attention as America does to the fisheries. Sir William Herdman ends a book which none but himself could have. written with a plea for -a new' Challenger 'expedition to solve sonic of the many fresh problems of oceanography. The cost would be small, but the results might be of immense commercial as well as scientific value.
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