the skate lives in mud, the sole in sand, and the gurnet among the rocks; zoology seeks to learn how temperature and salinity are distributed in the water; the telegraph industry needs very precise topo- graphic charts of the bottoms where it proposes to lay its cables. Discoveries multiply and every science develops with each generation of men.
As soon as a science is almost complete another replaces it, or perhaps two or three are founded together, for we see that natural manifestations, believed to be of a different order, are dependent in reality on the same law. Evolution is going on. Mineralogy is only a chapter of physics and chemistry; chemistry grew out of physics; physics grew out of mathematics; natural history is differentiating into groups and sciences; paleontology becomes paleozoology, a chapter of zoology, and paleobotany a section of botany; stratigraphic geology is paleoceanography and paleogeography; light is electricity; rhythmic vibration, measurable and measured, the wave—of sound, of light, of heat, of chemical action, of electricity—rules throughout the universe; barriers fall, matter follows the laws of the mind, everything advances toward scientific unity, as in the social domain everything moves toward unity of condition—that which assures to all, in the name of their common right to life, the maximum of happiness compatible with the human condition. There is slowly evolving a glorious moral and intellectual unity of truth, of science, of force, and of peace.
Though every nation aspires to this final end, each will reach it by different ways. While we hope for the day when all will possess the same intelligence because all will possess the same needs and the same ideal, this day has not yet, arrived. We see this in every event, no matter what it may be, literary, artistic, or scientific; we recognize it in the way in which oceanography has developed. The Englishman carries into his researches qualities of precision and boldness aroused by the thought of the practical utilization which he knows will result from his discoveries. The North German carries a temperament fond of work, but opinionated, slow, and diffuse; the Frenchman his ready-witted character, a discoverer, original but not persevering, submissive to routine, which he never ceases to execrate. The younger nations are profiting by the experience of their elders and inherit the improvements made in older times; they are endowed from birth with wealth of incalculable value inherited from former generations. They enter into action with the ardor, the boldness, and power of youth, and consequently with its success. They take the first rank, or will do so. They traverse in a few years all the phases which others took many centuries to pass through. In oceanography they undertake voyages of discovery, make geography, pure science, generalize, find practical applications. This is what is shown in the history of the development of the studies relating to the sea in the United States and Russia.
