Oceanography in the Philippines /
Alfonso R. Sebastian.
Includes bibliographical references
Oceanography, as the study of the sea in all its aspects, is the meeting ground of various sciences that deal with the sea. In the special physical, chemical, and biological fields, oceanography is of very recent development in the Philippines The first scientifically significant study of our waters was made in 1874 and 1875 by the globe-encircling Challenger expedition; the latest is that of the Galathea in 1951. Up to the intensive survey here of the Spencer F. Baird in 1947-49, only three foreign expeditions of similar nature (not including the Japanese-sponsored ones) have visited our shores, namely, the Planet in 1912, the Dana in 1929, and the Snellius in 1929-30. All others have only served in a general way to establish gross features of the ocean bottom and the general distribution of certain physical and chemical properties. Miguel Selga, S. J., former director of the Philippine Weather Bureau, has made a fine chronological compilation of these contributions to the oceanography of the Philippines, starting from Magellan’s historic “first sounding’’ of the Pacific in 1521 up to the beginning of the present century.