The Depths of the Ocean: A General Account of the Modern Science of Oceanography Based Largely on the Scientific Researches of the Norwegian Steamer Michael Sars in the North Atlantic

1912

Storage GC491 MZ35

London: MacMillan and Co.

In 1909, Scottish oceanographer, John Murray, put forward an idea to an International Congress for the Exploration of the Sea to make ‘systematic observations’ in the Atlantic Ocean. Murray defrayed all expedition costs and Norway lent Michael Sars and its crew. Norwegian oceanographer, Johan Hjort also accompanied Murray. The ship left Bergen, Norway in April 1910 and sailed to Plymouth to pick up Murray. The route of their five-month trip took them ‘down the western coasts of Europe as far as the Canaries…across the Atlantic, by way of the Azores, to Newfoundland… to the coast of Ireland’ and back to Bergen via the Faroe Channel. Murray and Hjort’s subsequent volume, The Depths of the Ocean, became ‘a classic for marine naturalists and oceanographers’.