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H. B. Bigelow Issue H. B. BIGELOW ISSUE VOL. XIV, NO. 2, JULY 1968 ON THE COVER- HENRY BRYANT BIGELOW 1879 1967 Leader in the Study of the Sea. Worthy Exemplar of the Agassiz tradition. Biologist: Distinguished Teacher. Judicious Advisor. Humanist. Sportsman. Author of "Oceanography, its Scope, Problems and Eco- nomic Importance", which led to the establishment of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1930 and laid the foundation of modern oceanography. Director 1930-1940. President 1940-1950. Chairman of the Board of Trustees 1950-1960. Founder Chairman 1960-1967. Noel B. McLean Chairman, Board oi Trustees Paul M. Fye Jan H;thn, Editor President and Director Columbus O'D. Iselin Published quarterly and distributed to the Associates, to H. 8. Bigelow Oceanographer Marine libraries and universities around the world, to Bostwick H. Ketchum to other educational institutions, major city public Associofe Director libraries and to other organizations and publications. Arthur E. Maxwell Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 59-34518 Associate Director Vol. XIV, No. 2 July 1968 /\ THE WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION ( ] f"^ C INwj | J C^ Woods Hole, Massachusetts QOCEANOGRAPHY has been aptly defined as the study of the world below the surface of the sea; it should include the contact zone between sea and atmos- phere. According to present-day acceptance it has to do with all the characteristics of the bottom and margins of the sea, of the sea water, and of the inhabitants of the latter. Thus widely combining geophysics, geochemistry, and biology, it is inclusive, as is, of course, characteristic of any 'young' science: and modern oceanog- raphy is in its youth. But in this case it is not so much immaturity that is responsible for the fact that these several sub-sciences are still grouped together, but rather the realization that the physics, chemistry, and biology of the sea water are not only important per se, but that in most of the basic problems of the sea all three of these subdivisions have a part. And with every advance in our knowledge of the sea making this interdependence more and more apparent, it is not likely that we shall soon see any general abandonment of this concept of oceanography as a mother science, the branches of which, though necessarily attacked by different disciplines, are intertwined too closely to be torn apart. Every oceanic biologist should, there- fore, be grounded in the principles of geophysics and geochemistry; every chemical or physical oceanographer in some of the oceanic aspects of biology." HENRY BRYANT BIGELOW HIS definition of oceanography was written so well, with such vision that I would challenge anyone to find or submit a better one, even to-day. In April 1927, the President of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor A. A. Michelson, appointed a committee with Frank R. Lillie as the Chairman, to consider the share of the United States of America in a world-wide program of oceanographic research and report to the Academy. Subsequently, Dr. Bigelow was invited to make investigations and prepare a report. The report led the Academy to recommend the establishment of a well-equipped oceanographic institution on the east coast. The result was that our Institution was established almost full blown in the course of a year, with Dr. Bigelow as director.* I urge anyone who has not done SO to read the book "Oceanography, its Scope, Problems and Economic Importance", Houghton Mifflin, 1931 which contains parts of the original report. Many of Dr .Bigelow's recommendations are as valid in 1968 as they were in 1929. Paul M. Fye Director Most books tell what their authors know or think they know. Henry B. Bigelow's "Oceanography" (Houghton, Mifflin) is devoted to telling what Mr. Bigelow does not know, to what, in fact, no one knows. Lewis Gannett (Book Review, N. Y. Times, 1931) *For a full account of the developments see Chapter IX in: "The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory" by Frank R. Lillie. The Univ. of Chicago Press. 1944. , HENRY BRYANT BIGELOW 3 October 1879 11 December 1967 An Appreciation . H,.ENRY BRYANT BIGELOW died There must have been a score or more on December llth, 1967, aged 88 years. sayings of Henry Bigelow that should be The world seemed suddenly to have be- down on paper. Two have stayed with come appreciably poorer. When 1 first me over the decades. One was the re- met Henry Bigelow he had recently lost minder of Mark Twain's definition of a son in a mountaineering accident, and ignorance; "not so much not knowing the impression that I gained was of a things, as knowing things that ain't so." stricken saint. Saintliness was a quality The other was a dirge of woe about the that he would have disclaimed. He was mistake of ever becoming a Director. "I a many-sided, warm and human person, can't think why anybody tries for it." loving the open air and the occupations I was often to think of that later when I that go with it. I have not previously learned from my own experience that the heard of a saint who so much enjoyed staff bring to the Director only the prob- partridge shooting. Nevertheless, my first lems to which there is no good solution. impression was to be borne out by my They solve all the easy and pleasant ones later experience of him. From his boy- themselves; and there is almost no limit hood and for the whole of his life Henry to the kind of problem that crops up loved the outdoors and every facet of among a staff of any reasonable size. natural life. At the age of 26 he married over the list of Henry Bigelow's Elizabeth Perkins Shattuck, who shared Looking associates from Europe, I feel that one this love and accompanied him on many of his great qualities was that he had a journeys. It was indeed tragic that they definite effect on everybody who worked should lose not only a son in the out- near him or dealt with him in any way. I doors, but shortly afterwards their elder remember myself the impact he made on daughter in an accident with a horse. the International Council for the Explora- They always treated their many friends tion of the Sea when he came to see us in with great generosity. In the early years Europe in March 1931 as representative of the Second World War we lived in of the North American Committee on Lowestoft, which was rather too near the Fishery Investigation. Throughout the enemy and rather often lightly bom- proceedings the conference was richer barded. It was characteristic of the whenever he was present. I am sure that Bigelows to offer to take our children and, it was the same when European workers as it were, adopt them for the duration came to work in association with him. of the war. This seemed to us a very One had the feeling that he was a man of sensible action to take, so much so that such excellence and such exceeding pleas- it was; I think, three days before we antness that not for a moment would one decided to decline it. After the war we relax in the effort to do one's very best in did not decline but joyfully accepted an order to support him as far as possible. equally generous offer to take one of our That was my personal feeling and it is children, who had suffered a serious ill- clear and to me at least, very remarkable, ness, and treat her as a Bigelow daughter that he must have had the same effect on for a year. These kindnesses were only the eleven or so people whose names are examples, though large ones, of the way in front of me: Hjort, Helland-Hansen, that the Bigelows treated their friends Schmidt, Knudsen, Maurice, Stanley who visited them. There was in their Gardiner, D'Arcy Thompson, Vedel behaviour as hosts not only the utmost Taning, F. S. Russell and le Danois. A. G. consideration but also a determination to Huntsman of Canada and Bigelow were, take trouble to make the visits exceed- as I saw during the Passamaquoddy ingly interesting for their guests. They Investigations, close colleagues and joint remain as vivid memories. venturers in many an enterprise. Out of the friendship with Hjort came their joint group he was an acknowledged master. fishing for prawns in U.S. deep water His report in 1909 on the medusae of the similar to that of the Norwegian fjords eastern tropical Pacific collected by the and so I have always supposed the Albatross is a classic and set the standard development of this fishery in the Gulf of for his many succeeding papers. It is Maine and elsewhere. sufficient surely to say that his name stands among the few who have laid the I remember who at D'Arcy Thompson, foundations of our knowledge of this that time was no means as by recognized group. Bigelow studied also the siphon- he deserved to forth on the be, holding ophores, the group in which in his latter of who took all the subject professors years he collaborated with Mary Sears. limelight for themselves, and those others His report in 1911 on the Albatross siph- whose chief monument was a series of onophores was of the same standard as students. On the latter very distinguished that on the medusae. It is said by Totton score ranks We have not Bigelow high. in his 1965 Synopsis of the Siphonophora Nesbit, Schroeder, Sette only Herrington, that the 1911 report is 'the most useful and Walford, all of whom are recognized systematic report on the Siphonophora as of the first rank in and being fishery that has ever been written.' Bigelow thus marine research, but also Smith, Ricketts, undoubtedly ranks as a great systematic Hoyle and Graves of the International Ice zoologist." Patrol, whose work is known all over the world, and one who' became his colleague The life of the young man up to the George L.
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