Salty Dogs and 'Philosophers': a Saga of Seafaring Scientists and Sailors Helen Rozwadowski [email protected]

University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Wrack Lines University of Connecticut Sea Grant July 2003 Salty Dogs and 'Philosophers': a Saga of Seafaring Scientists and Sailors Helen Rozwadowski [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/wracklines Recommended Citation Rozwadowski, Helen, "Salty Dogs and 'Philosophers': a Saga of Seafaring Scientists and Sailors" (2003). Wrack Lines. 6. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/wracklines/6 Salty Dogs and 'Philosophers' a Saga of Seafaring Scientists and Sailors Helen M. Rozwadowski ne definition of an oceanogra- fields–physics, chemistry, biology, and More than land-based institutions, pher, at least until recently, is a geology–on the project of understand- ships function tightly as units. Oscientist who goes to sea. Now, ing the oceans. Its practitioners did not Scientists traveling on ships, especially satellite data collection and remote sens- share a common set of intellectual ques- those whose primary mission was not ing may be permanently changing the tions, nor do they today. Instead, they science, fit only uneasily into the ship’s ocean-going culture of marine sciences. shared the experiences of boarding ves- bounded universe. They had to seek the Oceanography as it emerged in the last sels, meeting sailors, and wrestling with cooperation of captains, officers, and q u a rter of the nineteenth century the maritime gear used to retrieve data common sailors who had priorities and focused the attention of many scientific or specimens from the restless sea. interests quite distinct from their own. Producing scientific knowledge about the ocean during the nineteenth century required scientists to integrate their work with existing maritime practices, traditions, and technologies. Starting with the exploring voyages of Captain James Cook, men of science began to accompany expeditions to the far corners of the globe. Most of these scientific explorers did not study the ocean itself, nor its crea- tures. Instead they collected and cata- logued the fauna, flora, and mineral wealth of distant lands and islands, in pursuit of the dual goals of expanding knowledge of the natural world and increasing the wealth conveyed from colonized areas to imperial nations. Zoologists and geologists who accompanied exploring expeditions were recruited by naval and govern- ment officials, and lauded by a fasci- nated public back home who followed news of voyages and read popular nar- ratives of expeditions with enthusiasm. Scientists were not, however, always welcomed wholeheartedly by their expedition shipmates. In the early tradition of naval service, “a philosopher afloat used to be considered as unlucky a shipmate as a cat or a corpse.”i The dominant maritime attitude toward naturalists on naval vessels early in the nineteenth century had been one of derision. An officer of the HMS Challenger catches an albatross–historically considered by sailors to be a bad omen. The attitude towards seafaring scientists, or "philosophers", aboard was sometimes the same– "as unlucky a shipmate as a cat or a corpse." This continued illustration is from the Report of the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of the HMS Challenger, 1873-76. 1 Salty Dogs and Philosophers ...continued Some of the first scientists who set about, putting spade-fuls [of mud] into ates and a dangerous, immoral environ- sail to study oceanic fauna encountered successively finer and finer sieves, till ment. this attitude, when marine science got nothing remains but the minute shells.” Despite this disdain of common its start in the mid nineteenth century. In return, chief scientist Charles Wyville sailors, respectable people began at mid- Earlier, natural philosophers had inves- century to view the sea in a new way, as tigated characteristics of seawater and a romantic and heroic place. The vogue collected seashells, while hydrographers To many, ...the sea was of the seashore attracted middle class had charted inshore waters. an appalling place, the attention toward the ocean, and soon A continuous tradition of studying refuge of degenera t e s, polite society began to express cautious the sea began only at midcentury. The and a dangerous, immoral i n t e rest in travel across the ocean. No rth Pacific Exploring Ex p e d i t i o n , environment. Tentatively, they sampled life, and even which sailed from 1853 to 1855, repre- work, at sea. Yachts, packet ships, and sented a bid by the still youthful United steamers bore first aristocrats and gen- States to discover and name marine Thomson dubbed Challenger’s officers try, and subsequently the middle classes, iii fauna of that ocean. The expedition’s “ministers of cleanliness and order.” out to the blue waters. Ralph Waldo botanist, Charles Wright, complained As strange as officers and common Emerson expressed well the trepidation that, “the majority of the [officers’] mess sailors found scientists’ habit of covering that gave way to enthusiasm: “I find the have a most sovereign contempt for sci- the deck with mud and mucking about sea-life an acquired taste, like that for ence and no esteem for its devotees.” in it, exclaiming over the shapeless, col- tomatoes and olives. The confinement, The young marine zoologist, William orless animals, scientists found maritime cold, motion, noise, and odour are not Stimpson, who hoped that the expedi- culture even more foreign. They readily to be dispensed with.”vi tion would establish his scientific repu- acknowledged their ignorance of the The first generation of novelists to tation, complained that Commander unfamiliar world. Thomson dro l l y base their work on personal experience Cadwallader Ringgold insisted that noted that the naval officers referred to at sea, including Richard Henry Dana Stimpson sail aboard the flagship, which the naturalists as “‘philosophers’—not, I and Herman Melville, imbued the act of visited only major ports, rather than the fear, from the proper feeling of respect, going to sea with new meaning, creating smaller surveying brigs, which explored but rather with good natured indul- the expectations that generations of pas- zoologically unknown and there f o re gence.” He readily admitted that scien- sengers and sailors took with them to more interesting areas. tific educations were sadly deficient in sea. Indeed, Ringgold all but shut down “the matter of cringles & toggles & g rummets & other implements by As the sea became safer and sailors scientific work for a time during the marginally more respectable, the act of expedition by refusing to allow “any- means of which England holds her place among the nations.”iv setting sail on the blue water was trans- thing to be preserved on board the ship formed into a heroic undert a k i n g . which will make any dirt or create the Scientists joined the wider public Middle class men of science, who slightest smell.” Needless to say, this who became newly acquainted with the embraced the mid-century values of order stifled Stimpson’s work, which maritime world in the mid-nineteenth bravery and manly sport, followed natu- consisted of dredging the sea floor and century. Until that time, sailors were ralist-explorers, yachtsmen, and profes- sifting sediments to find animals, then generally considered by most genteel sional writers out to sea. dissecting and drawing them, or storing people to be a motley collection of them in preservative. ii undesirables, even criminals. During the Not all sea-going naturalists embraced maritime life with re l i s h . In the decades that followed that voyage of HMS Ra t t l e s n a k e (1846 - 1850), Thomas He n ry Hu x l e y, later Huxley accompanied Rattlesnake as an expedition, naval officers became more assistant surgeon, but he remained aloof accustomed to working with scientists better known as the staunch defender of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, discussed from the maritime work world on deck. at sea. Familiarity mellowed the nasti- He described his daily routine this way: ness that Stimpson encountered into the evils of ship life with one of the ship’s officers as they walked the decks “Shut up as I am in the midst of this friendlier jibes. By the time of the busy world, I manage to lead more com- famous voyage of HMS Challenger, during watch. They agreed that it was “the worst & most unnatural . fit for pletely than I have ever done, perhaps, which spent the years 1872 to 1876 cir- the solitary life of the student.” cling the globe to study the deep sea, none but the unscrupulous . it [of all mariners were more likely to laugh at courses of life] tended most to harden Landlubbers often focused on naturalists’ odd behavior and preoccu- the heart & render the conscience details that would not ordinarily have v pations. One young officer teased the callow.” To many, then, the sea was an appeared in more salty reminiscences, naturalists who “paddle and wade appalling place, the refuge of degener- reflecting their tendency to stay below in bad weather. During a gale Huxley 2 Salty Dogs and Philosophers ...continued wrote, “Every now and then. there is an instant of silence, crew. In the case of social equals, tensions erupted into direct then comes a roll. Ugh, the timbers creak, the pigs squeal, the c o n f rontation. Wallich constantly argued with Captain fowls cackle, two or three plates fly with a crash out of the Leopold McClintock, complaining that they were not fre- steward pantry.” His perspective did not include wind whip- quently enough employing sounding devices that retrieved ping the lines and sails, or cold waves crashing over the rail. vii bottom samples. After weeks of argument and mutual frustra- Even the studious Huxley could not stay below indefi- tion, McClintock snapped sarcastically, “I suppose you would nitely during his five-year voyage.

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