Historical profile The chemist who saved biology A long voyage led one young chemist to steer evolutionary biology onto the right course. Richard Corfield explores the life of chemistry’s Darwin In short John Young Buchanan was the sole chemist aboard HMS Challenger – a ship that spent four years studying the world’s oceans Previously seafaring scientific studies had mistakenly identified a substance on the seabed as a primitive organism that colonised the ocean floor throughout the globe Buchanan was responsible for uncovering this mistake, which could otherwise have seriously damaged the acceptance of evolutionary biology John Young Buchanan MUSEUM HISTORY NATURAL 56 | Chemistry World | February 2008 www.chemistryworld.org 135 years ago, a small steam and sail would be used to collect the samples. corvette slipped her moorings from Attached to this, at intervals, were the quayside in the bustling UK naval thermometers for measuring the city of Portsmouth and set out on thermal structure of the ocean, and one of history’s most extraordinary remote-controlled flasks for taking voyages of scientific discovery. HMS samples at different depths. At the NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM HISTORY NATURAL Challenger had been tasked – via an end of the sounding line was a device unlikely collaboration of the British for retrieving sediment samples Navy and the Royal Society – to from the seafloor itself. perform the first detailed study of It was essential to use steam the world’s oceans. power while dredging and sounding, The voyage had four specific because only with a consistent push objectives. The first was to from the propeller could the attitude investigate the physical conditions and position of the ship be kept of the deep sea in the great ocean constant. Under sail she would drift basins – as far as the neighbourhood miles off-station, but with the steam of the Great Southern Ice Barrier engine churning and her bow head- – with regard to depth, temperature, on into the sea, enough way could be circulation, specific gravity, and put on to achieve a stable position penetration of light. Secondly, it from which the sounding line could sought to determine the chemical be run out. composition of seawater at various depths – the organic matter in The crucible of time solution, and the particles in Buchanan’s greatest contribution suspension. Thirdly, it would to the voyage, and to the history attempt to ascertain the physical of biology as a whole, was his and chemical character of deep- debunking of a theory that could sea deposits and the sources of have done as much damage these deposits. And finally, it would to the science as Lysenkoism investigate the distribution of life – Trofim Lysenko’s doctrine that at different depths and on the deep characteristics acquired during life seafloor. could be inherited – had done to Along with the usual complement Soviet biology during Stalin’s reign of naval ratings and officers, the as Soviet leader in the mid Challenger carried a scientific crew instruments and skilled in the art Specimen jars brought 20th century. of five to undertake these Herculean of glass blowing – something that back to the UK aboard But the cast of characters tasks: Charles Wyville-Thomson, was likely to be in great demand on HMS Challenger behind Buchanan’s story were a emeritus professor of zoology at a naval vessel braving some of the great deal more wholesome than the University of Edinburgh, UK; roughest waters in the world. Lysenko. They were all passionately John Murray, a fiery tempered He was a kind and very sincere concerned to advance the theory and outspoken Canadian who was man, but so painfully shy that his that had then only recently to become the most famous of all warm nature often remained hidden. rocked the Victorian world to its Challenger scientists as the lead When he did form friendships they foundations – Charles Darwin’s author of the massive 50-volume were deep and long-lasting. This theory of evolution by means of tome that eventually ‘summarised’ was the case when he met the young natural selection. their findings; Henry Moseley, German, von Suhm, who was feeling By the middle years of the 1860s a young natural historian from very alone and overwhelmed when the foundations of the theory were the University of Oxford, UK; he joined Challenger at the end of in place and central to all of them Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm, a November 1872. was the notion of progress from German naturalist who joined Like Moseley, Buchanan was eager simple forms to those of increasingly the expedition at the last minute; to establish a well-equipped, on- greater complexity. So mammals John Wild, Wyville Thomson’s board laboratory. Consequently, one were more advanced than reptiles, secretary and the expedition artist; of the gun bays on the main deck was which were in turn more advanced and the most enigmatic, but one converted into a tiny physical and than amphibians, which were of the most crucial of the group, a chemical laboratory for his use. This more advanced than fish and so Scottish chemist named John Young marvel of miniaturisation managed on. This reasoning covered not Buchanan. to contain the paraphernalia of a only the vertebrates, but all of the At twenty-nine years of age, traditional Victorian chemistry invertebrates and single celled Buchanan had come to science laboratory – retorts, stills, test tubes, protozoa. Between all of these relatively late, having started a hydrometers, thermometers, blow- ‘Buchanan laid ‘grades’ of animal organisation degree in Glasgow to read arts pipes – all held neatly in place by it was thought there must be before discovering a deep-seated ingenious devices to counteract the to rest a theory transitional forms with intermediate love of chemistry. After studying motion of the ship. that could characteristics – so-called ‘missing on the Continent he returned to The purpose of the chemistry links’. Scotland to work with Crum Brown, lab was to analyse the seawater have seriously The champions of the theory the noted professor of chemistry and sediment samples that would damaged were Darwin’s tenacious defender at the University of Edinburgh. be brought up during the course Thomas Henry Huxley, professor Buchanan was a superbly practical of the expedition. A sounding line, evolutionary of geology at the Royal School of chemist, capable of making his own made of a rope of woven piano wire, biology’ Mines in the UK and Ernst Haeckle www.chemistryworld.org Chemistry World | February 2008 | 57 Historical profile in Germany. Both believed implicitly by the 1860s Huxley was the pre- ‘Huxley quickly installed Bathybius as the that this notion of progression eminent practising natural historian centrepiece of his evolutionary extended to the simplest forms of life in the Victorian Empire; a natural concluded that theorising. Huxley though was and indeed beyond – that there must foil to Darwin’s brilliant theorising. this was the cautious about claiming too much be a missing link between complex Huxley’s analysis of the sediment for the new organism. Unlike chemicals and simple organisms, or samples sent back by these dredging most primitive Haeckle, for example he never to put it another way, between non- ships showed an amorphous, organism ever endorsed the idea that Bathybius was life and life. translucent mass in the bottom of formed by spontaneous generation the bottles that seemed to move discovered of living tissue from non-living Primordial error on its own accord in an amoeboid – the ultimate organic compounds. And Huxley By the late 1860s the ships tasked fashion. Microscopical analysis was never quite able to accept with sounding the abyssal depths of the materials showed that it organic Haeckle’s proposition that Bathybius for the telegraph cables that would was peppered with tiny plates of ancestor’ was the missing link between the bind the elements of British Empire material that looked organic. When living and the non-living. together had been on the move for stained with carmine, the entire Despite Huxley’s reservations, about two decades. They were often mass seemed to show clear evidence by the end of the 1860s Bathybius instructed to preserve the samples of organic origins. To Huxley the was installed as the hottest thing of the seabed they dredged up in conclusion was obvious: here was in evolutionary biology. Regardless alcohol, and return them to a shore- the most primitive organism ever of whether it was the missing link based lab for analysis when they discovered – the ultimate original between life and non-life, the fact returned to land. In the middle of the ancestor. He wrote to his friend that it had been found in sediments 19th century, shore-based sediment and colleague Ernst Haeckle telling globally implied strongly that it analysis labs were in short supply him of the discovery and that he was a single superorganism that and much of the material went had named the organism Bathybius encircled the globe on the sea-floor. to Huxley’s laboratory in Jermyn haecklii in honour of the famous Street, London, for analysis. Even German evolutionist. Dredging for clues those samples that didn’t would not Haeckle was delighted with This then was the situation have escaped his notice because Huxley’s new organism and when HMS Challenger departed Lab on a ship The instruments in the miniaturised laboratory were marvels of Victorian ingenuity. Maximum and minimum thermometers used to measure the temperatures in the long drop to the sea bottom were heavily armoured against the crushing pressure of the deep ocean. They consisted of a U-tube filled with mercury attached to a bulb containing creosote. Expansion or contraction of the creosote moved the mercury around in the two arms, pushing a small spring-loaded metal index in front of it.