UC San Diego

Marine invertebrate specimens from the ocean floor played a large role in the formation of evolutionary theory and they continued to help men of science adjudicate natural selection later into the nineteenth century. By 1880, the deep ocean floor had become "Darwin's laboratory," a place to test the "direct action of external conditions on organisms." According to dominant Victorian marine biology, the deep sea was an eternal, unchanging biogeographical space. There, and only there, could naturalists investigate how organisms evolved without the influence of changing environmental factors. The ocean floor was also a politically-charged geographical location, as colonial trade networks relied upon accurate mapping of the sea floor to ensure the safety of merchant and naval fleets. This dissertation explores the emergence of the deep-sea floor as a contested space where science, practice, and politics became inextricably linked. One result of that entanglement was a challenge to Darwinian natural selection prompted by marine invertebrate specimens. Governmental and non-governmental organizations from Britain and America joined the battle over natural selection. This story illuminates ways in which the geographical location of an investigation can have long- lasting consequences on international policies, scientific discourse, and biological theories