OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE DAYS OF SAIL Ian S. F. Jones and Joyce E. Jones Second English Edition Oceanography in the days of sail © 2009 by Ian S.F. Jones and Joyce E. Jones This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, review, or as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of it may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Sydney Institute of Marine Science Ltd, 22 Chowder Bay Rd, Mosman 2088, Australia. www.sims.org.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data Jones, Ian S. F. 1942- Oceanography in the Days of Sail ISBN 978-0-9807445-0-7 (e-book) 978-0-9807445-1-4 (paper back) 1.Oceanography- history 2. Scientific voyages of discovery.- Australian and Pacific waters 3, The age of sail- navigational science- ocean technology 4. Naturalists and naval officers. Publisher of the first edition Hale & Iremonger GPO Box 2552, Sydney NSW Cover: Sailing ships in harbour at Hobart-Town in 1840. Sketched by Louis le Breton, artist with the French exploring expedition 1837-40 in the Astrolabe and Zélée, led by Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville. Lithographers Mayer and Gulaud Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NL PC 8816 © National Library of Australia, Canberra 1 Oceanography in the days of sail Contents Preface 4 1 In Search of Terra Australis Incognita. 8 2 In the Wake of Lapérouse 48 3 The Curiosity of the Europeans 98 4 The Pax Britannica 137 5 America's Bid for Status and Enlightenment 178 6 Oceanography, the New Profession 209 7 As Sail Gives Way to Steam 242 8 Epilogue 270 References 276 Location maps Pacific Ocean 7 Australian coastal locations 41 The track of the Uranie 83 Spice Islands 97 The track of the Vincennes 194 Seas around Japan 245 2 Oceanography in the days of sail Acknowledgments The authors' debt must be expressed to the late Sir George Deacon, who visited Sydney as a Senior Queen's Fellow in 1981. Sir George's early career had been involved with physical oceanographic studies in the cold southern waters. Later he undertook research on ocean waves and was knighted for his contribution to oceanography. On the occasion of his visit to Sydney University, he not only showed us Hurley's hand-cranked movie of Mawson's Discovery under sail, but also drew our attention to Prestwich's 1875 compilation and appraisal of the deep sea thermometry of the predecessors of the Challenger expedition of 1872 to 1876. To this, Sir George's last visit to the Antipodes, we owe the inspiration for this account of the contribution to oceanography of investigations in the South Seas. We would like also to take this opportunity to thank both Cynthia Jones and Alexander Jones for their assistance and encouragement during this project. Bruce Hamon, formerly of the CSIRO in Sydney kindly read our manuscript and made many valuable suggestions. While the records of many of the labours of earlier oceanographers are difficult to retrieve, the holdings of the Mitchell Library in the Library of New South Wales and the Fisher Library of the University of Sydney have proved invaluable to us. Many long neglected reports and measurements are to be found in scattered papers and articles, but here we have attempted to draw together into one volume the story of the development of physical oceanography in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. 3 Oceanography in the days of sail PREFACE Man lives on a planet of which almost two thirds is covered by ocean. This ocean has been the main means by which products, faiths and ideas have spread from one continent to another. In maritime societies, the natural history of the seashores had long aroused the interest and curiosity of those who lived near the sea. The behaviour of the coastal waters upon which our ancestors sailed and fished had a very practical importance. Scientific interest in the sea dates back at least to Greek and Roman times. Tidal behaviour, in particular, being very visible, became an early subject of interest and observation in early China. As observation and experimentation increased in importance as a source of knowledge, and the study of 'natural history' advanced and then subdivided into separate sciences, the study of the sea advanced within each of these sciences. As European communities, in particular, sent their sailing vessels further and further afield, the curiosity of the scientifically inclined found an ever enlarging source of nourishment in the observations that were now possible of the wider oceans and distant seas. Supported by those with the practical goals of improving navigation and reducing the risk of foundering, the inquisitive were able to build a description of the oceans. With improved instrumentation, and the capacity to measure and record came the interest in the physical aspects of oceanic behaviour and the beginnings of the science of physical oceanography. The waters of the Pacific have played an important part in the development of the science of oceanography, not so much because of the contribution from littoral scientists but because Oceania was the focus of many European scientific expeditions in the enlightened eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These expeditions, organised in the days of sail power, were conducted in the face of hardships and dangers unknown today. The narratives of their voyages were eagerly read in their day and still have the power to excite our interest and admiration. While we may be well acquainted with the stories of the most famous of these explorers, of Bougainville and Lapérouse for France and of James Cook for England, we are not so familiar with the efforts of the many others who surveyed the coastlines and probed the deeper ocean in the nineteenth century when European penetration of the southern hemisphere 4 Oceanography in the days of sail was reaching its peak. We here propose a review of the work of the most important contributors to our knowledge of the seas, a review in which we shall tell chiefly of their work in the physical sciences and in the South Seas. Considerable advances in scientific knowledge were achieved before the search for Terra Australis and the exploration of the Pacific became a subject of interest to Europeans and a focus for the study of marine science. For those who wish to know of the earlier developments in geographic knowledge and the knowledge of the tides, currents and waves, the article by Murray (1895) in the HMS Challenger reports provides a good starting point. The discoveries by civilisations other than European are not so readily available. This book will be of interest to those drawn by the romance of the sea: to sailors, yachtsmen, marine officers, hydrographers and marine scientists. They may wish to know of the adventures associated with exploring and measuring the southern seas in the days of sail, and of the qualities of persistence and leadership displayed by those in charge of the expeditions. The accomplishments of their predecessors will be of interest to contemporary environmentalists and oceanographers, as will the legacy they have left us. Measurements of the ocean were mostly made to satisfy curiosity. Only some few questions were of immediate practical consequence. Now, more than a century later, we are able to use the result of labours of the past to answer many economically important questions that would not have occurred to our ancestors. Can oil platforms withstand the waves and currents? How do fish stocks respond to surface currents? Or, more recently, what is the correlation between sustained droughts and the temperature of the tropical ocean surface? From a study of the measurements of the past comes the opportunity to assess questions such as the rate of climate change, since the deep ocean represents a large reservoir of heat that smooths the seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations in temperature. We should continue to build on the base of the curiosity-driven research of previous generations to ensure the sound management of the environment of our planet. University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science NSW, 2009 5 Oceanography in the days of sail 'Revolutions pass, political opinions can vary endlessly, but facts gained for science endure to honour the memory of those who have contributed to their acquisition. They are all landmarks set up by the generations which attest the gradual improvement of the spirit of man.' Dumont d'Urville (1833 ) Portrait of Dumont d'Urville 6 Oceanography in the days of sail Map of Pacific 7 Oceanography in the days of sail 1 In Search of Terra Australis Incognita Early Marine Knowledge Knowledge of the seas and oceans became of practical importance to mankind when trade, conquest and the imposition of religion became driving forces in the affairs of nations. Reliable travel by water depended upon knowledge not only of coastlines, reefs and shoals, but of tides, winds and currents. The possession of this information represented a strong commercial advantage. Competition for trade often precluded the passing of such information to others. Early mercantile civilisations in Europe, such as those in Crete and Phoenicia, relied upon trade for their prosperity by means of short-distance sailing routes within the enclosed Mediterranean Sea. As mercantile activity expanded out of the Mediterranean, knowledge of the tides, winds and currents of the oceans became more important. In the Persian Empire to the east, larger ships were built for use in the Indian Ocean and a grading system for sailors was introduced, based on their knowledge of the sea. In 55 BC the importance of information about the behaviour of the ocean was brought home to Julius Caesar during his first invasion of Britain.