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Articles

Volume 5, Number 2 (2004)

L.F. Marsigli (1658-1730): Early Contributions to Marine Science and Hydrography

Submitted
August 13, 2013
Published
2004-06-06

Abstract

During a career as a military engineer working in and around the Danube basin, Marsigli's wide-ranging scientific investigations provided him with a method when in 1706 he settled on the southern coast of France. His maritime studies led him to compose a treatise on the sea bed and its waters, followed by a lengthy section on corals and other lithophytes, which he misguidedly believed to be plants. Published as Histoire physique de Ia mer (1725), the issue in 1999 of the original text with English translation support the modern view of his priority in describing the physical aspects of this zone and confirm his title as 'Father of Oceanography'.