Medicine - Institutions > Army health reports and medical documents > Scientific memoirs by medical officers of the Army of India > Part XI, 1898 > 3 - Summary of the deep-sea zoological work of the Royal Indian Marine Survey Ship Investigator from 1884 to 1897
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Scientific Memoirs by
freezing point all the year round; that absolute darkness prevails, and that,
therefore, living vegetation must necessarily be absent;—these overwhelming
facts seem to have been sufficient to convince the earlier naturalists that animal
life could not possibly exist where such conditions reign. And even Wallich's
demonstration that creeping animals like starfishes did actually live at the
bottom of the deep sea—although it was but a corroboration and amplification
of forgotten discoveries made by English explorers earlier in the century—was
not at once sufficient to shake this firmly established pre-conception, but was
explained away.
However, in the year 1881 when the R. I. M. S. Investigator was launched
for the systematic survey of the Indian Seas, the existence of a bythabial fauna,
as rich and varied as that of many parts of the littoral, had become, thanks
chiefly to the world-wide researches of the Challenger, one of the familiar facts
of Natural History.*
Section 2.—An Outline of the Origin and Development of Marine
Surveying in India.
The history of Indian Hydrography, to which it is necessary to refer very
briefly, begins with, or even before, the history of the English in India.
The illustrious Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to follow
Magellan in circumnavigating the globe, although he did not actually enter
Indian waters, yet, in the course of his famous voyage (1577-1580), spent
several months cruising among their approaches in the East Indian Archipelago,
and may, therefore, be regarded as the pioneer of Indian marine surveying.
I have been accustomed to venerate him as the pioneer of Indian Zoology
also; for, to any one who knows that animal in a state of nature, the following
quotation will, I think, be sufficient proof that he and his companions were the
discoverers of the curious Robber Crab (Birgus latro) :—
"Neither may we without ingratitude, by reason of the special use we made of
them, omit to speak of the huge multitude of a certain kind of crayfish, of
such a size that one was sufficient to satisfy four hungry men at dinner...
They are, as far as we could perceive, utter strangers to the sea, living always
on the land, where they work themselves earths as do the conies, or rather
they dig great and huge caves under the roots of the most huge and monstrous
trees, where they lodge themselves by companies together. Of the same sort
and kind we found.... some that, for want of other refuge, when we came to
take them, did climb up into trees to hide themselves, whither we were enforced
to climb after them."
*For notices of all the ships, etc., that have been engaged in deep-sea work, from the beginning, up to
the present day, see Murray, Summary of the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of H. M. S.
Challenger, First Part, pp. 76-106 E.
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