Read Ebook: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature Science and Art Fifth Series No. 30 Vol. I July 26 1884 by Various

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A SCOTTISH MARINE STATION.

The wonders discovered by the chief scientific cruises of recent years have greatly increased the interest of the public in the science of the sea, and this public interest has quite lately assumed a tangible form in the foundation of the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research at Granton, near Edinburgh. To understand the importance and value of this Station, one must know something of the difficulties presented to any one who wishes to solve some special problem connected with the life which swarms in the waters around our coasts. He must rely on the help of fishermen for collecting specimens; and if he cannot go to the expense of hiring a boat and crew, he requires to content himself with any selection of their 'rubbish' which they may be pleased to make. Should he wish to examine any locality minutely, he must purchase a dredge and tow-nets, leads and lines, and bottles and boxes to contain the specimens which may be obtained. The difficulty is only half overcome when the work of collecting is over. It is impossible to convey the creatures alive to any distance; and after a few attempts to do so, the naturalist either hires a room in the fishing-village for his work, or gives up the study of marine life altogether; unless he steer a middle course, and content himself with a bare enumeration of species and a description of the external appearance of his specimens.

The individual who is desirous of making chemical or physical observations on the wide sea is in a still more evil case. His apparatus is more costly and more complicated than that of the biologist; it is less easy to manage in a boat not specially adapted for the purpose; and the immediate vicinity of a laboratory is of the first importance. The obstacles, in fact, are so numerous, that observations of this nature have been almost entirely neglected in Great Britain. Now and then, it is true, the fire of scientific enthusiasm burns strong enough in a man to enable him to overcome all difficulties, and to carry on a brilliant research with complete success to a satisfactory conclusion. The work of such men is monumental; but they do not appear many times in a century. The name of one marine chemist is associated with Edinburgh; it is that of Dr John Murray, who in the year 1816 made a series of researches on sea-water collected at Trinity. His work settled a most important point of theoretical chemistry, and it is referred to as of value to this day.

The work which is being carried on at the Marine Station at present is divided between four workers. Mr J. T. Cunningham, the naturalist in charge, is making a research into the development of the Teleostian fishes, the great group to which most of our food-fishes, such as the cod, herring, and haddock, belong. Mr J. R. Henderson has commenced to form a collection of all the animal life of the Firth of Forth; while Mr John Rattray is proceeding with a similar collection of the algae or seaweeds, and is also making a detailed study of the diatoms of the district, a piece of work which has never previously been attempted. Mr Hugh Robert Mill has charge of the daily meteorological observations at the Station, and he is working at the chemical and physical study of estuary-water, examining the variations in saltness and in temperature which occur from the fresh water to the open sea, and comparing them at different seasons. The work at the Station is thus seen to be purely scientific; and the results which will ultimately be obtained must be of great practical importance. Any scientific man is welcomed to work at the Station on special problems, without charge, and several gentlemen have taken advantage of the privilege.

It may give a better idea of the working of the various departments if the actual methods employed be shortly described.

The chemical and physical work done at sea is chiefly the collection of samples of water and the observation of temperature. Water from any moderate depth is collected by lashing a bottle to the sounding-line and lowering it to the proper point; the stopper is then pulled out by a cord and the bottle allowed to fill. The water in the bottle is not changed in its ascent, as the mouth is narrow and it always hangs vertically. When the sea is rough or the depth is great, it is necessary to employ some other means. The 'slip-water-bottle' is convenient for most purposes. It consists of a brass disc covered with india-rubber, and supporting a central column to which the line is attached. This is lowered to the required depth, and then a hollow brass cylinder, open below, but closed above except for a hole that just allows the line to pass, is allowed to slip down the line. The base of the cylinder strikes on the rubber-covered disc, and securely incloses a sample of the water, which is run off by a stop-cock into a bottle after the whole has been hauled on board. The water must always be brought to the laboratory in stoppered bottles, which are entirely filled, and have had the stoppers tied down from the moment of collecting.

The third form of thermometer has been found the most convenient, and, with some modification, the best for the purposes of the Station. It is Negretti and Zambra's deep-sea thermometer, and its principle is that when the temperature of the water is attained by the thermometer the instrument is made to turn over; the mercury column always breaks at the same point, a contraction near the bulb; the part which had been beyond the bulb remaining in the inverted tube, which is graduated so as to show the temperature at the moment of inversion. Its great advantage is that no subsequent change of temperature affects the instrument until it is set again. Its great defect is that it is difficult to be sure when it has turned over. The simple and ingenious inverting mechanism of Magnaghi is hardly trustworthy; but an improvement has been effected, in consequence of the experience gained at the Scottish Station, which makes the turning of the thermometer, or of any number of thermometers on the same line, a matter of certainty.

The transparency of the water is measured roughly by noting the depth to which a large white disc continues visible when immersed. In the course of a trip from Grangemouth to the Isle of May, the colour of the water was observed to vary from dirty yellow to clear blue-green; and the disc, at first visible only three feet below the surface, was seen at a depth of six feet at Inchgarvie, at fifteen feet off Inchkeith, and at no less than sixty feet a little east of the May. Although the water of the upper reaches of the firth has been rendered muddy by the admixture of river-water, that at the May Island remains beautifully clear.

The routine-work of a biological and chemical laboratory is not of much interest to most people. For every day of collecting, with its fresh sea-air and new sea-sights, there must be several spent on the Ark in preserving the specimens, pressing plants, dissecting, mounting microscopic objects, observing densities, analysing water, calculating results, and such things; and all this work does not always tend to preserve an odourless atmosphere.

It is not intended that the Marine Station shall long continue of its present small dimensions. The experiment, so far as it has gone, has been so successful that it is now proposed to erect a large house on shore near the quarry, where there will be commodious laboratories, large aquaria, and rooms for the accommodation of the workers. In the meantime, Mr Irvine of Royston has generously given the use of an old manufactory which stands close to the sea beside the quarry. It was formerly used as a tannery, and so contains a number of large water-tight tanks built in the ground. There is a steam pumping-engine; and a very simple modification of the existing pipes will secure the supply of abundance of sea-water. The tanks will be used for experiments on fish-breeding; and the buildings in the works can be employed as laboratories without much alteration.

The Marine Station is intended to be a centre from which branches will extend to other parts of the country. It is in contemplation to erect a permanent marine observatory on the Clyde; and there will also be a portable station, probably a floating laboratory on the plan of the Ark, which can be taken to any part of the coast where it is desirable to make an extended series of observations.

The Granton Station is, with the exception of an annual grant of three hundred pounds from the Scottish Meteorological Society, entirely supported by voluntary subscription; and the heartiness with which the appeals to the public have been responded to by donations of money, apparatus, and material, shows how thoroughly the people of Scotland realise the importance of the work which is being done. The Government Grant Committee of the London Royal Society has made certain allowances to the members of the scientific staff for special researches; but this is not in any sense a government endowment of the Station, the Treasury having definitely refused to give any money for such a purpose. Although government support is an extremely desirable thing, the willing aid of an enlightened public is still better, and the Scottish Marine Station at Granton has this aid.

FOOTNOTES:

BY MEAD AND STREAM.

It seemed very curious to Madge that she should become the confidant of those two men, with whose fate that of her mother had been so sadly associated. She was thrust into the ungracious position of arbiter between them; she had to decide whether or not the one was false and treacherous, or the other the victim of his own hasty passion and self-deceived in his accusations. She was satisfied that Mr Beecham had spoken under the conviction of the truth of what he told her; and Mr Hadleigh had just shown her that--if innocent--he could be magnanimous, by his willingness to meet in friendliness one whom he had so long regarded as his implacable foe.

The position involved so much in the result to her and to Philip, that she felt a little bewildered, and almost afraid of what she was about to hear. But she could forgive: that knowledge steadied her.

Mr Hadleigh with his formal courtesy asked her to be seated. He stood at the window, and she could see that the white gloom of the coming snowstorm was reflected on his face.

'May I inquire where you have met Mr Shield?'

She was obliged to reply as she had done to a question put by Philip, which, although different, was to the same purport: 'I may not tell you yet.'

'Philip knows that you have met him?'

'No.' It was most uncomfortable to have to give these evasive answers, which seemed to make her the one who had to give explanations. She observed that Mr Hadleigh's heavy eyebrows involuntarily lifted.

'I ought not to have asked. Pardon me.'

Something in his tone and manner plainly showed that he had penetrated her secret and Mr Beecham's.

'I am sorry not to be able to give you a direct answer.'

'It does not matter,' he said with a slight movement of the hand, as if he were putting the whole subject of her acquaintance with Shield aside. 'I know, from the exclamation you made a little while ago, that he has told you with all his bitterness why he and I have not been friends.'

'There was no bitterness, Mr Hadleigh, but much sadness.'

'I am pleased to hear it, and I will try to give you my explanation in the same spirit. First about George Laurence. I never heard his name until after my marriage; and it is therefore unnecessary to say that when I did hear it, and learned the nature of his former relations with my wife, it was not possible for me to receive him in my house, or for him to regard me as a desirable acquaintance. There were unfortunate consequences following upon this peculiar position; but they may pass. They made my life a hard and solitary one.'

He paused, and as he looked out into the dull atmosphere, the vague stare in his eyes, as if he were seeking something which he could not see, became pathetic. Madge began to understand that expression now, and the meaning of the melancholy, which was concealed from others under a mask of cold reserve. She sympathised, but could say nothing.

'I never spoke to the man, and saw him only a few times. But acquaintances of mine, who thought the news would be agreeable to me, told me of his ways of life and predicted the end, which came quickly. The mistake made by Philip's mother and Mr Shield was in believing that it was not until after her marriage that Laurence neglected his business and took to dissipation. Men who had known him for several years previous to that date informed me that his habits were little altered after it. Nights spent in billiard-rooms and other places; days wasted on racecourses and his fortune squandered. He attempted to retrieve all by one daring speculation. Success would have enabled him to go on for a longer or shorter time, according to the use he made of the money; failure meant disgrace and a charge of fraud. He failed, and escaped the law by taking poison.'

'Are you sure of this?' ejaculated Madge, startled and shocked by this very different version of the sentimental story she had heard.

'I will show you the newspaper report of the inquest, and a copy of the accountant's report to the creditors on what estate was left. They will suffice to satisfy you that there is no error in anything I have said.'

'Why was it that Mr Shield, who was his most intimate friend, knew nothing of this?'

'He must have known something, but not all. His ways were quiet and studious, and what he did see, he did not regard with the eyes of experience. I do not think that Laurence attempted to deceive him; for men who fall into his course of life soon become blind to its evils and consequences; and so, without premeditation, he did deceive him. Mr Shield, being a man as passionate in his friendships as in his hates, would listen to no ill of his friend. But there is one thing more which I have never repeated, and never until now allowed any one over whom I had influence to repeat. You, however, must learn it from the lips of one who witnessed the scene.'

He rang the bell, and Terry the butler appeared. It was one of Mr Terry's strict points of discipline in his kingdom below stairs that without his sanction no one but himself should answer the drawing-room bell. Obeying a motion of the master's hand, he advanced with a portly gravity becoming the dignity of his office.

'You were an attendant in the Cosmos Club about the date of my marriage?' said the master.

'I was, sir, then, and for six months before, and a good while after.'

'You recollect what was said about the marriage a few evenings after it took place?'

'Perfectly, sir, because you told me to write it down, as you thought some day it might be useful to you.'

'The day has come. Tell us what you heard.'

'There was a small dinner-party in the strangers' room, and I had charge of it. The gentlemen were particularly merry, and in fact there was a remarkable quantity of wine used. Your marriage, sir, was mentioned; and Mr Laurence, who was the gayest of the company, although he took less wine than any other gentleman, proposed the health of the happy couple. I recollect his very words, sir. He says: "I was in the swim for the girl myself; but this beggar, Hadleigh, cut me out; that was luck for me, so here's luck to them;" and the toast was drunk with perfect enthusiasm. Mr Laurence made away with himself some time after; and I heard the gentlemen whisper among themselves, when referring to the sad event, that it was a question of doing that or of doing a spell of penal servitude. That's all, sir.'

The master nodded: Mr Terry bowed and retired with the portly gravity with which he had entered.

Mr Hadleigh turned to Madge. The butler's story produced the effect desired: she was convinced, for she felt sure that no man who loved could speak so lightly--or speak at all--of the woman he loved in a company of club bacchanalians.

'But why did you not tell this to Mr Shield?' was her reproachful exclamation.

'Because he would not listen to anything I had to say. From the time of the marriage until after the death of Laurence, we never met. Then he came to me, mad with passion, and poured out a volley of abuse. I was patient because he was her brother; and silent because it was as hopeless to expect a man drunk with rage to be reasonable as one drunk with alcohol. In his last words to me he accused me of murder. We have never spoken together since.--Do you think me guilty?'

'I do not believe it,' she replied decisively; 'nor would he have believed it, if what you have told me had been made known to him in time.'

'I am grateful to you,' said Mr Hadleigh, bending his head; 'but I perceive you do not know Mr Shield. Time and solitude alter most men, and they must have had a peculiar effect upon him to have enabled him to make such a deep impression on you. He used to be obstinate to the last degree, and once he had formed an opinion, he held to it in spite of reason.'

She paused; and his keen eyes rested searchingly on her troubled face.

'I know what you would say, and I see that you have doubted me. Ah well, ah well; it is a pity; but that, too, shall be made clear to you, I trust.'

She looked up again hopefully.

'Oh, if you will do that!' The tone was like that of an appeal.

'It can be done, I think.... You have been told that it was I who, in my enmity to Shield, took advantage of his long absence and silence to set abroad the report that he was married. I did not. The story was on the tongue of everybody hereabouts for months, and I, like the rest, believed it. There are only two men who would have said that I spoke the falsehood--the one is the man who invented it; the other is Shield himself.'

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