Our author, born 2nd of November, 1805, was the eldest son of a Belfast merchant, then extensively engaged in the linen trade; and, being intended by his parents for the same business, he received such an education as was at the time considered suitable for commercial life. In 1821 he was apprenticed to a highly respectable firm in the linen business, the staple trade of the North of Ireland. The senior partner of that firm, himself a keen sportsman, has survived the subject of the present memoir, and is not unfrequently referred to in the volumes on " The Birds of Ire- land," as an authority on their habits.
“[An] amiable, in-depth examination of the most critical era for the development of modern oceanography” (Publishers Weekly). In a history at once scientific and cultural, Helen Rozwadowski shows us how the Western imagination awoke to the ocean's possibilities?in maritime novels, in the popular hobby of marine biology, in the youthful sport of yachting, and in the laying of a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. The ocean emerged as important new territory, and scientific interests intersected with those of merchant-industrialists and politicians. Rozwadowski documents the popular crazes that coincided with these interests?from children's sailor suits to the home aquarium and the surge in ocean travel. She describes how, beginning in the 1860s, oceanography moved from yachts onto the decks of oceangoing vessels, and landlubber naturalists found themselves navigating the routines of a working ship's physical and social structures. Fathoming the Ocean offers a rare and engaging look into our fascination with the deep sea and into the origins of oceanography?origins still visible in a science that focuses the efforts of physicists, chemists, geologists, biologists, and engineers on the common enterprise of understanding a vast, three-dimensional, alien space. “Rozwadowski greatly expands our own understanding, all while telling a story that is original, wide-ranging, and illuminating.” —Margaret Deacon, Southampton Oceanography Centre, author of Science and the Sea: The Origins of Oceanography “Required reading for anyone wanting to understand how the oceans have come to play the role that they do in Western knowledge.” —Eric L. Mills, Dalhousie University and author of Biological Oceanography: An Early History, 1870-1960 “Chronicles the birth of deep-sea oceanography, from early observations by Benjamin Franklin to the voyage of HMS Challenger in the 1870s. [Rozwadowski] weaves a rich narrative from the world of renowned as well as lesser-known oceanographers.” —Nature
