MR. J. Y. Buchanan, F.R.S

Abstract

THE last member of the original scientific staff of H.M.S. Challenger on her famous voyage of discovery in the great oceans has passed away by the death, on October 16, at eighty-one years of age, of Mr. John Young Buchanan. He holds an assured place as one of the founders of modern oceanography, and if his personal share in the fundamental researches is not more conspicuous in the text-books, it is largely because of his loyalty to the spirit of the expedition which gave the glory to the Challenger group rather than to individuals. He was in the most literal sense an original worker, always preferring to settle a point by observation or experiment rather than-by books, and when reference to recorded work was necessary, always going direct to the fountain-head, never to a compilation. He paid no regard to authority or scientific orthodoxy, and did not get on comfortably with those who did. Censorship of research, even the reference to experts of papers submitted to a learned society, was obnoxious to him, and he spoke very plainly on this subject in communications to NATURE and elsewhere. So far as he allowed his singularly restrained and reserved nature to express itself in warm terms, he showed a passion for the freedom of research. He said: “To standardise research is to limit its freedom and to impede discovery. Originality and independence are the characteristics of genuine research, and it is stultified by the acceptance of standards and by the recognition of authority” (Preface to his “Comptes Rendus,” 1917).