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CORAL REEF FORMATION AND THE SCIENCES OF EARTH, LIFE, AND SEA, C. 1770-1952 Alistair William Sponsel A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE PROGRAM IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE Co-advisers: Angela N.H. Creager and D. Graham Burnett APRIL 2009 © Copyright by Alistair William Sponsel, 2009. All rights reserved. ABSTRACT I argue that the search for a generally-applicable theory of coral reef formation began in the 1770s and that the pursuit of this type of explanation continued to orient reef research until 1952. The most influential (and still most famous) of these theories was the one proposed by Charles Darwin after the voyage of the Beagle (1831-1836), drawing on his knowledge of hydrography and the work of Alexander von Humboldt. I examine the sources and arguments of this and alternative theories, up to the moment when, by general consensus, Darwin’s theory was proved correct by deep drilling on the atoll of Eniwetok [now Enewetak] in 1952. I interpret the Eniwetok drilling not as a straightforward proof of Darwin’s theory, however, but as the moment when the princi- ple that a single theory would explain all reefs was decisively undermined. I show that reefs could not easily be classified by the categories of animal, vege- table and mineral, and living and fossil, that oriented much of the study of science, and use my long-term case study to examine the arrangements and re-arrangements of scientific disciplines with respect to these categories. By examining the different practi- cal approaches to studying reef formation, moreover, I show how new “ways of know- ing” were integrated with older ones in a continuous tradition of inquiry. This dissertation analyzes the theories of reef and atoll formation presented by Johann Reinhold Forster on Captain James Cook’s second Pacific voyage, Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, James Dwight Dana of the United States Exploring Expedition, John Murray of the British Challenger expedition, and Americans Alexander Agassiz, Alfred Goldsborough Mayor, Thomas Wayland Vaughan, William Morris Davis, Reginald Aldworth Daly, and many more. The narrative culminates in work done at Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads (1946) and the Bikini Scientific Resurvey iii (1947) by Harry Ladd, Joshua Tracey, Jr., and Roger Revelle, followed by the drilling at Eniwetok. I trace the role of coral reef science in the development and practice of the scientific disciplines of natural history, natural philosophy, zoology, geology, biology, geomorphology, physical geography or physiography, geophysics, and ecology. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe this dissertation to the help and encouragement of some extraordinarily generous people. The best thing about submitting it is having the opportunity to recog- nize and thank them publicly. I received many intriguing suggestions and far more good advice than I have been able to put into action. The shortcomings of the text that fol- lows are my own. Long enough ago for it to have been presumptuous on at least two counts, I told Laura Stark that I couldn’t wait to acknowledge her in my dissertation. Now I know that even my greatest expectations underestimated her. I could hardly have conceived how much I would eventually learn from Laura about doing scholarly work, or how much she would let me rely on her while I struggled at various moments. Let me not delay any further in saying thank you. I am honored to have had Angela Creager and Graham Burnett as co-advisers of my dissertation, and I thank them for working so closely and enthusiastically together on my behalf. Angela has shepherded me through graduate school with more care and patience than I could possibly have deserved. I am profoundly grateful for her sound advice, her ready feedback, her well-timed nudges, and her amazing skill at blending tough love with unwavering optimism. She has suffered to help me finish this disserta- tion, and I owe her everything. Moreover, if it had not been for her learned supervision and patronage of my work on the nuclear weapons tests at Bikini and Eniwetok, this dis- sertation would literally have been lacking its proper ending. I originally became interested in writing about coral reef science during my first semester at Princeton, as a member of Graham’s graduate seminar on “Science across the Seas.” One Thursday in November 2002, in a pre-dawn class meeting on the morn- v ing that we all had to fly to the History of Science Society meeting in Milwaukee, we discussed an article by David Stoddart on Darwin’s coral theory. The delirium of the early morning was broken when Graham became very animated, even by his tireless standards, in response to one of my questions. On the spot he charged me to write an essay examining the relation between Humboldt’s zonation of mountainside flora and Darwin’s notions about the growth of coral around an island. Many iterations later this piece has become chapter two of the present dissertation. Graham was my inspiration and my imagined audience for much of what follows, and I am deeply indebted to him for following through on the excitement and intellectual promise of that early seminar. The other two readers of my dissertation, Michael Gordin and Janet Browne, have not only given me valuable comments and advice for future work, they have given me attention, guidance, and intellectual support for as long as I’ve known them. I thank them very much for their labor on my behalf. There are many others who have helped to make this dissertation possible. The members of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University introduced me to the field and encouraged me to pursue it beyond graduation. The fac- ulty of my master’s degree course in London convinced me to make it a career. I was tremendously fortunate to be designated an advisee of Andrew Warwick , who has remained my mentor ever since. He and Rob Iliffe taught me how one might actually be a historian of science. Simon Schaffer and Jim Secord have been cherished advisors to me before, during, and since my long research trip to Cambridge, UK in 2006. I wrote most of the text that has ended up in this dissertation in Evanston, IL and Washington, DC. I am profoundly grateful to Ken Alder at Northwestern University and Pam Henson at the Smithsonian Institution Archives for giving me wonderful places to work. Thanks as well to the members of Northwestern’s Science in Human Culture program, my friends at the SIA, and the Inter-Library Loan staff of the Northwestern and Smith- sonian libraries. vi I have been blessed to share my time at Princeton with my cohort-mates Doogab Yi and Jeris Yruma and many others, in particular Lindy Baldwin, Daniela Bleichmar, Tom Boeve, Dan Bouk, James Byrne, Jamie Cohen-Cole, Andy Graybill, Ole Molvig, Tania Munz, Joe November, Nick Popper, Jeff Schwegman, Jason Sharples, Suman Seth, and Matt Wisnioski. I owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who has participated in the History of Science Program Seminar and to Linda Colley for teaching me about Brit- ish history while I was a general exam student and teaching assistant. Goodness knows where I would be without the counsel and administrative help of Reagan Campbell, Tina Erdos, Minerva Fanfair, Vicky Glosson, Judy Hanson, Lynn Kratzer, Pamela Long, Debbie Macy, Audrey Mainzer, Etta Recke, and Amy Shortt in the History Department, and Elizabeth Bennett and the rest of the library staff. Many thanks also to Charles Gil- lispie, Mike Mahoney, and Helen Tilley in History of Science, Jim Gould and everyone else I met at Mathey College, and to my fellow members of the Princeton cycling team. I have received enormous contributions of time and expertise from many other members of the field. At Cambridge I benefited from time spent with members of the HPS department, especially those in the Cabinet of Natural History, and help from staff at the University Library and the Whipple Library. I am enormously grateful to Alison Pearn, Paul White, and everyone else at the Darwin Correspondence Project for giving me the opportunity to search their full text database. While I was in Britain, I received specific help on this project from Jon Hodge, Greg Radick, Brian Rosen, and Martin Rudwick. Sarah Dry was the best fellow-dissertation-writer and friend imaginable. In this country, I was helped in every way by the unbelievably generous Ron Rainger, and I learned a lot from conversations with Rob Kohler, Lynn Nyhart, Michael Reidy, Helen Rozwadowski, the participants at the 2006 Dibner Institute “Oceans and Atmospheres” Seminar in the History of Biology at Woods Hole, and many, many others. I must say a special thanks to David Stoddart for the warm reception he gave me when I appeared in vii Berkeley and told him that I was working on a dissertation prompted by his writings on the history of coral reef science. There would be a lot missing from this dissertation without the inventive help I received from archivists at the repositories listed at the front of the bibliography, and I thank them profusely. I am especially grateful for the extraordinary services rendered by (in chronological order) Ellen Alers at the Smithsonian, Godfrey Waller and com- pany at Cambridge, Tricia Boyd in Edinburgh, Professor Jim Kennedy and Stella Breck- nell at Oxford, and Guy Hannaford and Ann Browne at Taunton. Since I began working on this project, I have been heartbroken by the unexpected losses of Mike Mahoney, who guided me through the writing of my pros- pectus and much else; Peter Lipton, who welcomed me as a visiting student at Cam- bridge; and my uncle Topper Sponsel, who would have insisted on reading my disserta- tion.