The first ideas about circulation of water were stated in Franceby Bernar Palissi, who have published in 1580 the small book, in which rain deposits were named as the basic power supply of the rivers and underground waters for the first time. 200 years before Erasm Darvin, who is considered to have done a correct explanation of the mechanism of circulation of water, he has correctly understood a principle of working of artesian well. But really radical were the researches, made by Pier Pierro (1611-1680), who has build a waterpipe for Louvre. During this work he has actually carried out waterbalance accounts. He has measured separate elements of circulation of water and has proved, that the sum of deposits in one of areas of the top part of pool of the river Sena, exceeds the charge of water of higher inflow of Sena at least six times, therefore the deposits provide a current of water in the rivers. His works formulated, that the part of a moisture of land is provided there from the sea. The English astronomer Edmond Galilee (1655-1742) was the first to measure an evaporation from a surface of the sea and directly to specify, that the ocean is also a source of steam, resulting deposits above a land. The measurements and conclusions from them became possible due to occurrence of the first items of hydrological and meteorological supervision. Here it is necessary to thank Leonardo da Vinchi, who offered to measure the speed of current of water with the help of floats. In 1654 the first international network of hydrological supervision was created by the Toskansky count.

The first extensive items of information on ocean were received after round-the-world travel of the English expedition on a vessel "Challenger" (1872-1876), during which W. Thomson used lot, created by him with dynamometer and metal string instead of hempen rope. Only after this expedition it became possible to make rather authentic maps of ocean, and to define rather precisely itssquare, volume and average depth. Especially quick study of ocean was in XX century.

During the Second World War echo sounder and hydrolocators for measurement of depths were used. It is systems sending impulses or beam by a mechanical or electronic way from the ship to the bottom, from which they are reflected, and the reflected signal is accepted onboard a vessel by the reception device. According to the time of passage of a signal to the bottom and back, the depth in the given point is measured.

In 1853 in Belgium the first International meeting of geographers was held. They tried to understand an interrelation of ocean and weather, and now this problem has connected oceanologers and meteorologers even closer. E. Galilee has managed to count up evaporation from a surface of the Mediterranean sea and has specified the importance of evaporation and transpiration from the surface of a land, due to what not all the deposits, dropped out, flow down in the sea. And on a boundary of the XVIII and XIX centuries John Dalton has shown, that the evaporation from a surface of the Earth should be less, than sum of deposits, otherwise the rivers would disappear. He has also tried to calculate water balance for England and Wales.