Gulf of Lyon, some miles from the little port of Banyuls near Port-Vendres. A cable laid across such a valley is sure to break, and if the perfect knowledge of the topography of the region does not make the cause of the accident clear, we may be tempted to strengthen its envelope, that is to make it heavier and consequently more certainly provoke a subsequent rupture. It is not without reason that the English companies have in their service a fleet of telegraphic vessels intended for these studies alone, carrying a special technical staff, unceasingly employed in working on oceanography. They evidently guard against making known the obtained results, and are no more to be blamed for their secrecy than would be those contractors for building railroads who, provided with detailed maps of a region over which they have been ordered to lay a road, should conceal their documents, acquired laboriously and at great expense, from the engineers charged with overlooking their work and with paying them, and who on their side must, therefore, remain in ignorance of the topography and geology of the country. England holds the monopoly in the construction of submarine lines. France possesses only a small number, and, even of these, the larger part were built by the English. It is not enough to possess colonies beyond the ocean; it is necessary to be in direct communication with them. That we are at the mercy of foreigners for our telegraphic communications, the events of Siam and Madagascar furnish proofs painful to record.
II.
Oceanography is a science which applies to the natural phenomena of the sea, the precise methods of the exact sciences, mathematics, mechanics, physics, and chemistry.
It is a science of experimentation, of measurements, working by analysis and by synthesis toward the final end of learning the present history, and consequently the past and future history, of the earth, because all science which discovers and states laws is a prevision. Oceanography is thus a branch of geology, and since the soils stratified—that is to say, deposited—in the midst of the sea, formed by it, enter largely into that portion of the earth's crust which is directly accessible to our investigations, we would be authorized to claim oceanography as the most important branch of geology. It is ludicrous to hear arguments on the Silurian, the Devonian, or the Carboniferous oceans, now millions of years old, to hear discussions concerning their shores, their waters, or their currents, while we still know so little of our own ocean of to-day, on whose surface our vessels sail, into which we plunge our bodies, over whose immense circumference we are free to cast our gaze, with whose waters we moisten our lips if we wish, whose waves sing their monotonous and majestic harmony in our ears, of which we can take full possession by all our senses.
