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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)
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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

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References

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