Siboga expedition
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The Siboga expedition was a Dutch scientific expedition from March 1899 to February 1900 for the hydrographic and zoological exploration of Indonesian waters (then Dutch East India ). The ship used is named after the Siboga . The expedition was organized and led by the zoologist Max Wilhelm Carl Weber , director of the Zoological Museum of the University of Amsterdam (ZMA).
The ship and the crew
The Maatschappij ter Bevordering van het Natuurkundig Onderzoek of the Nederlandsche Koloniën had been planning an expedition to study marine fauna, especially the deep-sea basins in Dutch East India , since 1896 . The Dutch government made the ship Siboga available for the planned expedition . The Siboga was a newly-built screw steamer or a gunboat for the colonial military with about 1,400 horsepower, powered by two propellers . The launch of the 50.60 x 9.40 x 4.61 m ship with a water displacement of 810 t took place on April 28, 1898 in Amsterdam . The decision to use the ship not for military purposes but for the expedition was made when the ship was almost seaworthy, in May 1898 by the Governor General in Batavia , so that it was possible to convert it for research purposes. The colonial government financed the crew's salaries and took over the running costs, for example for the coal.
Two depth probing machines with large electric and steam-powered winches were installed on the cannon platforms. A total of around 20 km of wire rope was available with all the modern equipment at the time for pelagic fishing, for the collection of plankton ( Hensen's network) and for sampling seawater from defined depths. Max Weber set up a laboratory with chemicals to determine the oxygen concentration dissolved in the water and procured various (underwater) thermometers and containers for water samples. Alcohol in oak barrels and formaldehyde were used to preserve the collected organisms, which were stored in zinc containers and wooden crates.
The expedition team consisted of 63 people in total: 10 Dutch naval officers, 6 scientists (including Anna Weber), 45 (mostly Javanese) seamen, and 2 private servants. In addition to the leader of the expedition Max Weber, other participants were his wife, the algologist Anna Weber-van Bosse , the zoologist and first deputy Jan Versluys , the zoologist and second deputy Hugo Nierstrasz (1872-1937), the doctor A. Schmidt, the draftsman JW Huysmans and the captain Gustaaf Frederik Tydeman (1858-1939), who was responsible for the hydrographic measurements.
The expedition
The Siboga left Amsterdam on December 16, 1898 and reached Jakarta on February 7, 1899. On February 11, it sailed to Surabaja on the island of Java , where final preparations for the expedition were made. The Siboga Scientific Expedition started on the morning of March 7, 1899 from Surabaya and ended at the same location on February 26, 1900. During that barely year it crossed an area of 1,200 miles north-south and 1,500 miles in an east-west direction and covered more than 12,000 nautical miles .
All 181 deep-sea excavators and the train network operations during the journey were accompanied by deep soundings. In addition, 103 positions were fished and sediment samples were taken from 96 positions . Although the main destination of the expedition was the deep sea of the archipelago, shallow waters , coral reefs and beaches were also examined. There were also regular excursions ashore. A total of 323 sampling points are recorded. In the ports, not only food and coal was bunkered, the samples that had been collected up to that point were also sent to Amsterdam in the sealed zinc containers. Max Weber also used the local fish markets to purchase unknown species (e.g. Ruvettus tydemani ).
Results
Four scientists had collected a large number of zoological, botanical and geological material on the Siboga . Scientists from 12 countries investigated this over the next few decades. Most of the papers dealt with zoological aspects, five dealt with algae , two dealt with geology and one (by Tydeman) with the topographical relief of the archipelago. The temperature and oxygen measurements were not evaluated. The results of the Siboga expedition exceeded all expectations: around a third to half of all species collected appeared to be scientifically new. Many new species were discovered, Max Weber alone scientifically described 131 new species. By his death in 1937, about 95% of all results of the expedition had been published. More than 60 volumes with the detailed results of the expedition have been published, the last work in 1986.
The results of the Siboga expedition led to a better understanding of the transition zone between the Southeast Asian ( Orientalis ) and the Australian ( Australis ) fauna . Weber showed that the Wallace Line is not a sharp boundary. He laid a line within this transition zone, on which as many Asian as Australian species occur, which is now known as the Weber Line .
As early as 1922, the respected journal Nature rated the Siboga expedition in comparison with the first deep-sea expedition, the Challenger Expedition (1872–1876):
"The stately series of reports on this expedition, which have been appearing under his (Weber's) editorship since 1902, form a contribution to the science of the sea scarcely surpassed in importance save by those of the Challenger expedition. Dealing with only a restricted area of the ocean, but paying far more attention to the fauna and flora of the shallower waters than the naturalists of the Challenger were able to do, it is not too much to say that the Siboga expedition has given a new one aspect to many problems of the distribution of marine animals in tropical seas. "
The captain and hydrograph Tydeman drew at least 28 detailed maps with anchorages, sea routes and island groups. He also made two nautical charts of the Indonesian archipelago with precise depth information. He wrote 100 hydrographic notes, determined the heights and positions of more than 200 landmarks, and conducted astronomical surveys of an additional 34 locations. Although the area had not been adequately mapped, Tydeman only named two places: Lake Bali and Siboga Ridge .
The ethnographic collections are now at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.
literature
- Florence FJM Pieters & Jaap de Visser: The scientific career of the zoologist Max Wilhelm Carl Weber (1852-1937) . In: Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde . tape 62 , no. 4 , 1993, p. 193-214 ( dare.uva.nl ).
- Hendrik M. van Aken: Dutch Oceanographic Research in Indonesia in Colonial Times . In: Oceanography . tape 18 , no. 4 , 2005, p. 30-41 ( modelseas.mit.edu [PDF]).
- Albert E. Theberge Jr .: The Siboga Expedition . In: Hydro International . tape 15 , no. 1 , 2011 ( hydro-international.com ).
