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July 2003 Salty Dogs and 'Philosophers': a Saga of Seafaring Scientists and Sailors Helen Rozwadowski [email protected]

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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 cen- tury required scientists to integrate their work with existing maritime practices, traditions, and technologies. Starting with the exploring voyages of , men of science began to accompany expedi- tions 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 enthusi- asm. Scientists were not, however, always welcomed wholeheartedly by their expedition shipmates. In the early tradition of naval service, “a philosopher afloat used to be consid- ered 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 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

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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. Unlike many of his fellow like to have a diving bell sent down,” clearly a ridiculous x naturalists who accompanied hydrographic surveying ships, proposition for working in thousands of fathoms. including Charles Darwin, who sailed with HMS Beagle, The crew was not as free to complain openly. Bulldog Huxley devoted considerable attention to marine fauna, focus- sailors relied on time-honored forms of protest such as steal- ing on pelagic organisms collected from tow nets while ing officers’ food, desertion, and even taking Wallich’s boots, Rattlesnake was under way. Specimens were the essential cur- to express their dissatisfaction for what must have been an rency of natural history. With his collections at stake, Huxley extremely arduous and unpleasant cruise. If desertions are a paid careful attention to tow net operations and lamented good index, then Wallich’s frequent complaints about the p roblems that arose out of incongruent work rhythms Bulldog voyage were well grounded. Three months into the between himself and the sailors. He complained bitterly, for expedition, fourteen men deserted. The next few nights, more example, of sailors’ propensity for emptying the head or the men attempted to run away until, as Wallich reported, “The garbage during surface tow net operations. Simpson had faced men are evidently in far from a proper state. Today they similar problems, as when the deck officer tried to record in applied for leave to go ashore in a body!!” He added unneces- the official log his sighting of a penguin in the Coral Sea. sarily, “Of course it was refused.” xi With difficulty, Stimpson managed to persuade him of the The Bulldog’s crew blamed Wallich as much as any of geographical impossibility of such an event. The next day their officers for their hard lot. Besides causing extra work, Stimpson crowed sarcastically in his journal that the “penguin” Wallich condescended to them. He assumed that the sailors viii had been an escaped chicken. would lose valuable bottom sediments in the “sort of scramble Huxley’s motive for setting sail resembled Stimpson’s: to to see what was in the apparatus.” So he instituted a policy gain access to collections of animals new to science. After the that only he was allowed to extract sediment from the sound- Rattlesnake’s return, Huxley won a grant from the Admiralty to ing device. In great depths, sounding apparatuses were sent support the publication of his book reporting results from the down weighted. The detaching mechanism for the sinkers voyage. He subsequently parlayed his years at sea into a paid also triggered the valve that trapped the bottom samples. One position as a scientific lecturer in the Government School of day when the apparatus failed and came up empty, with the Mines. As such, Huxley numbered among the first generation sinker still attached, the sailors saw their chance to embarrass of scientists who earned their living through a career in sci- and annoy Wallich by adhering to the letter of his law. ence. The success of voyaging naturalists such as Huxley, Lugging the 118-pound sinker below to Wallich’s cabin, they Darwin, and the botanist Joseph Hooker encouraged others to roused him and solemnly, with straight faces, showed him the think of sea-going as a route to a career in science. This was film of mud on one side. This sample, Wallich tersely record- particularly true for scientists interested in marine fauna, so ed, he did not “deem” worthwhile to preserve. xii much of which was relatively unknown. George Wallich, the By the 1860's, the ocean was recognized as a promising British microscopist who accompanied the cable surveying research site by amateur naturalists, professional zoologists, voyage of HMS Bulldog in 1860, went to sea, he explained, and physical scientists as well. As scientific interest in the deep “for the acquirement of the reputation I covet.” He chose ocean broadened, biological and physical scientists banded marine zoology because “the field might almost be said to be together to argue for national resources to support major ix untrodden.” investigations. British scientists mobilized the support of the Unlike Huxley,Wallich was as interested in technology as Admiralty and the Royal Society for a series of cruises to science. He designed a new deep-sea sounding device and dredge and study the deep sea. The most famous of these, the spent long hours talking about sounding gear with the hydro- HMS , sailed in 1872 to study the graphic surveying officers who were his shipmates. He failed world’s oceans. utterly, however, to understand and negotiate the social and Early ocean scientists, especially the Challenger organiz- political dynamics on board, a failure that compromised his ers, were cognizant of their role in forging a functional work- scientific work. As a microscopist, Wallich desired samples of place for scientific investigation of the depths. Thomson deep-sea bottom sediment to examine, hoping to discover described the effort to associate independent civilian scientists whether life could exist at great depths. Wallich’s voyage on with a man-of-war as a “critical experiment.” The success of Bulldog provides a vivid example of how scientists’ shipboard that experiment depended on a new commitment for naval conflicts manifested themselves differently with officers and officers to facilitate, even participate in, the scientific work

3 Salty Dogs and Philosophers, continued from page 15 b rought on board by naturalists. supervision of dredging from scientists. of all, landlubbers on ships tended to Challenger’s captain, , com- Once steam machinery was retain a landsman’s perspective, some- mented that “Eve ryone here is most introduced to hoist sounding and dredg- times consciously, sometimes not. To the civil,” referring to the adoption of a new ing apparatus, the officer in charge had g reat irritation of the naval officers, level of politeness and deference between to orchestrate the crew’s labor with the Challenger naturalists “persist[ed] in call- scientists and naval officers. Efforts at w o rk of the engineers who ran the ing things by either shore-going names, civility did not, however, entirely miti- machinery. Scientists had no choice but or terms which they have picked up in gate differences that were part of the to stand aside and let officers decide merchant passenger steamers.” In the maritime social fabric. While sailors where and when to dredge and sound, middle of the expedition, Thomson still with middle-class aspirations were some- then to watch and wait until sailors final- reckoned time in the land unit of univer- times interested in the scientific work, sity sessions. Sailors, by contrast, kept most common sailors re g a rded with their lives organized around “watches” some contempt the scientific “idlers,” as even during overland explorations. xvi they called anyone who did not stand Although scientists resisted some xiii watch. aspects of maritime life, they imbibed Unfriendliness tow a rds scientists eagerly in maritime customs that they on board was quickly reinforced by could re - c reate as entert a i n m e n t . antipathy towards the extra work they Following the precedent of captains who caused. Initially, dredging, trawling, doled out additional grog for unusually and sounding inspired intense curiosity hard work, chief scientist Thomson pro- about what lay beneath the wave s . duced champagne for the officers’ mess Early in the C h a l l e n g e r c ruise, as after the capture of a crinoid new to sci- botanist Henry Moseley reported, each ence. As the kind of “living fossil” zool- dredge haul attracted a crowd of “every ogists and geologists expected to find in man and boy in the ship who could pos- the deep sea, this early in the sibly slip away,” waiting breathlessly for cruise augured well for the rest of the a glimpse of the secrets of the depth. expedition. Often scientists part o o k Instead of merfolk or monsters, sand, more eagerly than the sailors in tradi- mud, and a soon-monotonous assem- tional maritime activities. blage of animals appeared in nets and When Challenger crossed the equa- sounding devices. As the novelty wore tor for the first time, Lt. Herbert Swire off, the crowds dwindled. Naval officers, noted that he and the other novice offi- engineers, and seamen soon began to This odd looking apparatus is an early drift cers “may consider that we have been refer to scientific work “d ru d g i n g . ” bottle, one of many ingenious contributions lucky in escaping the levee which Who could blame them? Even the sci- to the emerging science made by Albert I, Neptune usually holds on these occa- entific staff came to regard collecting Prince of Monaco (1848-1922). Inside the glass ampule is a message in 14 languages. sions.” The idea of “crossing the line” work as tedious and, increasingly, they amused the philosophers, though. John we re “not present at the critical Murray recorded in his journal that his moment, especially when this occurred ly emptied the nets on deck. Officers’ crossing cost him two quarts of Moselle, in the middle of dinner time, as it had an probably extorted by his social equals, un f o r tunate propensity of doing.” xi v complete control over operating deep-sea xvii apparatus led, when the devices came up the officers, rather than the crew. Even on voyages not as fraught with empty, to heated debates about whether Landlubbers on ships we re conflict as that of the Bulldog, scientists or not they had even reached the bot- intrigued, but not at all convinced, by and officers held incommensurate view- t o m . Naturalist John Murray arc h l y maritime superstitions. One tested points about control of collecting opera- observed that the statistics on sounding repeatedly on nineteenth-century scien- tions. Be f o re the 1860's, naturalists and dredging posted in the Wardroom tific exploring expeditions was the stric- dredged alone or supervised a small hired did not include attempts in which ture against killing albatrosses while at crew, often from their own or a patron’s instruments were lost.xv sea, made famous by Samuel Ta y l o r yacht. In depths over one or two hun- Differences of perspective between C o l e r i d g e’s The Rime of the An c i e n t d red fathoms, dredging re q u i red not Mariner. As one of the sights that lands- only many hands, but also someone scientists and non-scientists meant that where sailors gazing over the rail saw jel- men were educated to expect at sea, sci- skilled at coordinating their work. On entists we re thrilled by their first naval vessels, the watch officer took over lyfish, scientists observed “many speci- mens . . . float[ing] past the ship.” Most glimpses of these birds. That did not

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stop them from capturing and killing the challenge of integrating their work xiii Thomson, Voyage, xvii-xviii . George Nares to them to preserve their skins, as Stimpson into ships’ physical and social structures. George Richards, Jan. 26, 1874, Br i t i s h Hyd rographic Office, “S” Papers, Mi s c . did during the North Pacific Exploring Together with the officers, their social Papers, 84a. Expedition. Even after scientific speci- equals, scientists created a safer and xiv Henry M. Moseley, Notes by a Naturalist: An mens were secured, scientists and officers tamer version of traditional maritime Account of Observations made during the Voyage shot them for sport, prompting fears of culture, one that not only made them of HMS ‘Challenger’ round the World in the shipwreck by common sailors when large comfortable in the alien world of ocean- Years 1872-1876 (London: John Mu r r a y, 1892), 501. “Drudging” quote is from numbers of birds were shot. Challenger going ships, but also promoted their sci- George Campbell, Log-Letters from the scientists delighted in poking fun at such entific work. This new scientific, ‘ C h a l l e n g e r’ (London and New Yo rk : superstitions, as when Murray noted maritime culture profoundly shaped the Macmillan and Co., 1877), 482. xv ironically, “Have been sailing all day. emerging discipline of oceanography by Moseley, Notes by a Naturalist, 502. John Murray, “HMS ‘Challenger’ Diary of Sir John Not an Albatross has been seen today, so encouraging future generations of Mu r r a y” (He re a f t e r, “Murray Jo u r n a l” ) , that the first day we really got a good oceanographers to define themselves as NHM, Mineralogy Library, Sir John Murray trade wind, the Albatross left us.” xviii scientists who go to sea. Library, Section 1, vol. 1, June 22, 1874. xvi “Specimen” quote is from Thomas H. Huxley, Many sea-going scientists, such as “Mss. Voyage of the HMS Ra t t l e s n a k e C h a l l e n g e r naturalist He n ry Mo s e l e y, References Notebook,” No. 2 (1847-48) Dec. 20, 1847, became fond of their adopted maritime ICA, THH Swire, Voyage of the Challenger, i Quoted in Henry Charnock, “HMS ‘Challenger’ vol. 1, 17-18. Thomson to Thomas H. lifestyles. Moseley welcomed his free- and the development of marine science,” The Huxley, Halifax, N.S., May 13, [1873], ICA, dom from the day-to-day distractions of Journal of Navigation 26(1)(1973): 5. THH, 27: 301. newspapers and letters. At sea, he devot- ii Charles Wright to Asa Grey, Nov. 4, 1853, Gray xvii , [Challenger Journal], Sept. 4, ed his time to work and reading. As Herbarium, quoted in Ronald Vasile, “A Fine 1873, RGS, LBR. MSS. AR 114A. Swire, View from the Shore: The Life of William Voyage of the Challenger, vol. 1, 61-63. Challenger approached England at the Stimpson.” [manuscript]. William Stimpson Murray Journal, Aug. 30, 1874. “Journal of a cruise in the US Ship Vincennes end of the voyage, he reflected, “I felt xviii Frederick, J. Stuart, Sr., NPEE Journal, Aug. to the No rth Pacific Expedition, Be h r i n g almost sorry to leave, at Spithead, my 28, 1853, National Archives, Microscopy 88, Straits” (Hereafter, “Stimpson Journal.”), June roll 7, p. 45. Murray Journal, July 25, 1875. small cabin, which measured only 6’ x 10, 1854 and April 23, 1855, Smithsonian 6’, and return to the more complicated Institution Arc h i ves (SIA), No rth Pa c i f i c xix Moseley, Notes by a Naturalist, 517. George R. relations of ‘s h o re - g o i n g’ life, as the Exploring Expedition (NPEE) Papers, RU Agassiz, ed., Letters and Recollections of 7253, Box 1. Alexander Agassiz (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, sailors term it. I had lived in the cabin 1913), 167. i i i George C. Campbell, Log-Letters from the three years and a half and had got to ‘ C h a l l e n g e r’ (London and New Yo rk : look upon it as home.” Those few mis- Macmillan and Co., 1877), 4-5. Charles W. erable scientists who never got their sea Thomson, Voyage of the ‘Challenger’: T h e Atlantic, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan & Co., legs conve rted their experiences into 1877), xviii. UCONN Professor Helen Rozwadowski specializes in the history of science, tales of heroic perseverance. Of iv Thomson, Voyage, 114. environmental history, and maritime his- Alexander Agassiz’s constant seasickness, v Thomas H. Huxley to Henrietta Heathorn, Oct. tory. She is the author of The Sea his son and biographer wrote: “Anyone 17, 1847,” Imperial College Archives (here- Knows No Boundaries: A Century of afflicted with the malady can easily a f t e r, ICA), Thomas H. Huxley Pa p e r s Marine Science under ICES (2002) and (THH), Correspondence with He n r i e t t a a forthcoming work, Fathoming the imagine what fortitude and enthusiasm Heathhorn (HH), 2. Ocean: Human Enterprise and the it must have required to crawl on deck vi Ralph Waldo Emerson, “English Traits,” 1865, Opening of the Deep Sea. from a bunk of despondency and pain in Jonathan Raban, ed., The Oxford Book of and lose one’s self in the eager examina- the Sea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, tion of the treasures which the dredge 1993), 271-273. vii This article was featured in had just brought to the surface.”xix Huxley to Heathorn, May 7, 14, 1848 and May 12, 1849, ICA, THH, Correspondence with Wrack Lines magazine, Agassiz, along with C h a l l e n g e r HH, 19 and 5. Fall/Winter 2003. scientist John Murray, numbered among viii Thomas H. Huxley, “Deep Sea Soundings,” Published by the Connecticut the handful of ocean scientists who Notebook, ICA, THH, Scientific Notebooks, 2nd Series, 116, p. 1. Stimpson Journal, Jan, Sea Grant College Program at bridged the nineteenth and early twenti- 27, 1854. the University of Connecticut. eth century practice of oceanography. ix George C. Wallich, “Daily Diary of Voyage of When they boarded naval vessels like the ‘Bulldog’,” July 2 and July 12, 1860, NHM, L Challenger, midcentury ocean scientists MSS WAL (hereafter, “Wallich Journal”). x e n c o u n t e red an unfamiliar maritime Wallich Journal, July 2, 1860. world. xi Wallich Journal, Sept. 9, 1860. Oceanography developed in the xii Wallich did preserve other samples this small, boasting about the value of tiny samples to crucible of ocean-going ships, on whose determine whether the sounder hit bottom. decks these landlubber naturalists faced Wallich Journal, Sept. 2, 1860.

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