Figure 17. - The ward room
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Three
general points may be made in taking stock of the early years
of the Albatross’s history. First, the story underscores
Spencer Baird’s importance as a builder of institutions
that promoted the study of science in 19th century America. In
forming the U.S. Fish Commission, Baird recognized that research
in the earth’s little-explored oceans had great scienti.c
value (USFC, 1873). He also knew that this type of activity required
more than interested individual researchers; it also demanded
the resources that only a relatively large organization could
provide.
In modern terms, one could say that a “big science”
approach was essential. The Commissioner’s pronounced political
skills made it possible for him to obtain the authority and funds,
as well as the involvement of the U.S. Navy and other government
agencies, that allowed the Fish Commission to become one of the
world’s leading research institutions in the ocean sciences.
His ability to build the Albatross, widely recognized
as the world’s first large purpose- built research vessel,
was of particular importance as marine scientists shifted their
attention to deep oceanic waters (Allard, 1978:348–350,
353–355).
Secondly, the Albatross’s early history reflects
the scientific distinction of the Baird program. There is little
doubt that he viewed the Fish Commission’s basic scientific
survey of the Northwest Atlantic as having primary importance
(U.S. Congress, 1891:66–67; Rathbun, 1892:680). It is equally
clear that his simultaneous investigation of the biology, physics,
and chemistry of the seas revealed a sophisticated approach to
ocean science. In fact, the validity of his agenda continues to
be recognized by modern scientists. For example, John Hobbie,
the current Co-Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory’s
Ecosystems Center in Woods Hole, has stated that Baird was one
of the pioneers in ecology who created “new approaches to
questions of interactions of organisms and their physical, chemical,
and biological environment.” Hobbie concluded that Baird
set modern .sheries research “off in an holistic, ecological
direction” (Galtsoff, 1962:11; Allard, 1990:269).
Figure 18. - The berth deck, looking from forward aft.
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Baird’s pursuit of applied projects in support of American
fisheries, such as his search for new fishing grounds, also revealed
the Fish Commissioner’s willingness to intermix practical
programs with abstract science. This approach reminds one of David
Starr Jordan’s observation that Spencer Baird had a “theory
of utility in science” in which “knowledge loses nothing
through acquiring human values, and research takes on a certain
dignity by serving at once intellectual demands and human necessities”
(Jordan, 1922:I, p. 287).
Thirdly, the activities of the Albatross are an essential
component of the pioneering survey of the northwest Atlantic that
was undertaken by the U.S. Fish Commission between 1871 and 1887
(Allard, 1997). The relative intensity and sustained nature of
this work are worth particular notice since, as Robert Cowen (1960:46)
once observed, most oceanographic work in the 19th Century was
based on “scattered soundings, samplings, and dredgings”
that revealed only the “gross characteristics” of
maritime areas. The validity of Cowen’s observation is revealed
in Table 1 which shows the limited number of research stations
established by other expeditions of this period, including stations
logged by the HMS Challenger during her circumnavigation
of the world during 1872–76.
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