Edward Forbes

The ship may rove through the waters above,
'Mid scenes exciting wonder,
But braver sights the dredge delights
As it roves the waters under.

Edward Forbes FRS, FGS (12 February 1815 – 18 November 1854) was a Manx naturalist. In 1846, he proposed that the distributions of montane plants and animals had been compressed downslope, and some oceanic islands connected to the mainland, during the recent ice age. This mechanism, which was the first natural explanation to explain the distributions of the same species on now-isolated islands and mountain tops, was discovered independently by Charles Darwin, who credited Forbes with the idea. He also incorrectly deduced the so-called azoic hypothesis, that life under the sea would decline to the point that no life forms could exist below a certain depth.

Quotes

Then a-dredging we will go, brave boys,
Then a-dredging we will go.

• Hurrah for the dredge, with its iron edge,
     And its mystical triangle,
  And its hided net with meshes set,
     Odd fishes to entangle!
  The ship may rove through the waves above,
     'Mid scenes exciting wonder;
  But braver sights the dredge delights
     As it roveth the waters under!
           Chorus.
       Then a dredging we will go, wise boys!
       Then a dredging we will go!
  • "The Dredging Song", signed "By a Member of the Dredging Committee of Section D", st. 1, in The Literary Gazette; and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., no. 1,242 (7 Nov. 1840), p. 725 [13]. Note: "When the British Association met in Glasgow, in 1840, he proposed that a dredging committee should be formed, the establishment of which he celebrated by the...song."—John Hughes Bennett, Memoir of the Late Professor Edward Forbes (Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1855), pp. 8-9. Variants: 'waters above' for 'waves above', 'roves' for 'roveth', 'brave' for 'wise'

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Edward Forbes on Wikipedia
• Data related to Edward Forbes on Wikispecies