The Sea Around Us (32 page)

So here and there, in a few out-of-the-way places, the darkness of antiquity still lingers over the surface of the waters. But it is rapidly being dispelled and most of the length and breadth of the ocean is known; it is only in thinking of its third dimension that we can still apply the concept of the Sea of Darkness. It took centuries to chart the surface of the sea; our progress in delineating the unseen world beneath it seems by comparison phenomenally rapid. But even with all our modern instruments for probing and sampling the deep ocean, no one now can say that we shall ever resolve the last, the ultimate mysteries of the sea.

In its broader meaning, that other concept of the ancients remains. For the sea lies all about us. The commerce of all lands must cross it. The very winds that move over the lands have been cradled on its broad expanse and seek ever to return to it. The continents themselves dissolve and pass to the sea, in grain after grain of eroded land. So the rains that rose from it return again in rivers. In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. For all at last return to the sea— to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.

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From
In Northern Mists,
1912 edition, A. H. Clark, vol. 1, pp. 234 and 247.

Suggestions For Further Reading
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General Information About the Ocean and Its Life

Bigelow, Henry B. and Edmonson, W. T.
Wind Waves at Sea, Breakers and Surf,
U.S. Navy, Hydrographic Office Pub. no. 602, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947. 177 pp.
Extremely readable; full of interesting and practical information about waves at sea and along coasts.

Johnson, Douglas W.
Shore Processes and Shoreline Development.
New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1919. 584 pp.
Primarily for geologists and engineers concerned with shoreline changes, yet the chapter, The Work of Waves, is unmatched for sheer interest.
Out of print.

Marmer, H. A.
The Tide.
New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1926. 282 pp.
In this book the late outstanding American authority on tidal phenomena explains the complex behavior of the tides.
Out of print.

Maury, Matthew Fontaine.
Physical Geography of the Sea
. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1855. 287 pp.
Marks the foundation of the science of oceanography, as the first book to consider the sea as a dynamic whole.
Out of print.

Murray, Sir John, and Hjort, Johan
. The Depths of the Ocean.
London, Macmillan, 1912. 822 pp
. Based chiefly on the work of the Norwegian research vessel Michael Sars in the North Atlantic, this work was for many years the bible of oceanography.
It is now out of print and copies are rare.

Ommaney, F. D.
The Ocean.
London, Oxford University Press, 1949. 238 pp.
A thoughtful and pleasantly written account of the ocean and its life, for the general
reader.

Russell, F. S. and Yonge, C. M
. The Seas.
London, Frederick Warne and Co., 1928. 379 pp.
Written chiefly from the biological point of view, this is one of the best general treatments of the subject.

Sverdrup, H. U., Fleming, Richard, and Johnson, Martin W
. The Oceans.
New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1942. 1087 pp.
The standard modern textbook of oceanography.

Some of the most rewarding sources of information about the sea are the Sailing Directions of the U. S. Hydrographic Office (for waters outside of the United States) and the Coast Pilots of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (for United States shores). Besides giving detailed accounts of the coastlines and coastal waters of the world, these books are repositories of fascinating information on icebergs and sea ice, storms, and fog at sea. Some approach the character of regional geographies. Those dealing with remote and inaccessible coasts are especially interesting. They may be purchased from the issuing agency. The British Admiralty publishes a similar series, as do the appropriate authorities of most maritime nations.

Sea Life in Relation to Its Surroundings

Hardy, Alister.
The Open Sea.
Part I, The World of Plankton. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956. 335 pp. Part II, Fish and Fisheries, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959. 322 pp.
A two-part study of marine biology, describing first the little-known creatures of the true sea world beyond the coastal areas, and then the fishes that depend on them.

Hesse, Richard, Allee, W. C, and Schmidt, Karl P.
Ecological Animal Geography.
New York, John Wiley and Sons (2nd Ed., 1951). 597 pp.
This is an excellent source of information on the intricate relations of living things to their environment, with profuse references to source material. About a fourth of the book is concerned with marine animals.

Murphy, Robert Cushman.
Oceanic Birds of South America.
New York, Macmillan, 1948. 1245 pp. 2 vols. (originally issued by American Museum of Natural History, 1936).
Highly recommended for an understanding of the relation of birds to the sea and of marine organisms to their environment. It describes little-known shores and islands in extremely readable prose, and contains an extensive bibliography.
Out of print.

Wallace, Alfred Russell,
Island Life
. London, Macmillan, 1880. 526 pp.
Deals in interesting fashion with the basic biology of island life.
Out of print.

Yonge, C. M.
The Sea Shore.
London, Collins, 1949. 311 pp.
For the general reader, a charming and authoritative account of the life of the shore; based chiefly on British localities.
Out of print.

Ricketts, E. F. and Gavin, Jack
. Between Pacific Tides.
Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1948. 365 pp.
An ideal companion for exploring American Pacific shores
.

Exploration and Discovery

Babcock, William H.
Legendary Islands of the Atlantic; a study in medieval geography.
New York, American Geographical Society, 1922. 385 pp.
Deals with early exploration of the sea and the search for distant lands.
Out of print.

Beebe, William. Half Mile Down. New York, Harcourt Brace, 1934. 344 . pp.
Stands alone as a vivid eyewitness account of the sea half a mile below the surface.

Brown, Lloyd A. The Story of Maps. Boston, Little, Brown, 1940. 397 pp.
Contains, especially in the chapter, The Haven Finding Art, much of interest about early voyages.

Challenger Staff.
Report on the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of H. M. S. Challenger,
1873—76. 40 vols.
See especially volume 1, parts 1 and 2—Narrative of the Cruise—which gives an interesting account of this historic expedition. Consult in libraries.

Cousteau, Jacques-Yves and Frederic Dumas.
The Silent World.
New York, Harper and Brothers, 1953. 288 pp.
A fascinating book in which the reader shares Cousteau's long and remarkable experience undersea.

Darwin, Charles.
The Diary of the Voyage of
H. M. S. Beagle. Edited from the manuscript by Nora Barlow. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1934. 451 pp.
A fresh and charming account, as Darwin actually set it down in the course of the
Beagle
voyage.

Dugan, James.
Man Under the Sea.
New York, Harper and Brothers, 1956. 332 pp.
An interesting and useful account of man's explorations undersea during the past 5000 years.

Heyerdahl, Thor.
Kon-Tiki.
Chicago, Rand McNally & Co., 1950. 304 pp.
The Odyssey of six modern Vikings who crossed the Pacific on a primitive raft—one of the great books of the sea.

History of Earth and Sea

Brooks, C. E. P.
Climate Through the Ages.
New York, McGraw-Hill, 1949. 395 pp.
Interprets clearly and readably the climatic changes of past ages.
Out of print.

Coleman, A. P.
Ice Ages, Recent and Ancient.
New York, Macmillan 1926. 296 pp.
An account of Pleistocene glaciation, and also of earlier glacial epochs.
Out of print.

Daly, Reginald.
The Changing World of the Ice Age.
New Haven, Yale University Press, 1934. 271 pp.
A fresh, stimulating, and vigorous treatment of the subject, more easily read, however, against some background of geology.
Out of print.

Our Mobile Earth.
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926. 342 pp.
For the general reader; an excellent picture of the earth's continuing development.
Out of print.

Hussy, Russell C.
Historical Geology: The Geological History of North America.
New York and London, McGraw-Hill, 1947. 465 pp. Out of print.

Miller, William J.
An Introduction to Historical Geology, with Special Reference to North America.
New York, D. Van Nostrand Co., 6th Ed. 1952. 499 pp.

Schuchert, Charles, and Dunbar, Carl O
. Outlines of Historical Geology.
New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1941. 291 pp.
Any one of these three books will give the general reader a good conception of this fascinating subject; the treatment by the various authors differs enough that all may be read with profit.

Shepard, Francis P.
Submarine Geology.
New York, Harper and Brothers, 1948. 348 pp.
The first textbook in a field which is still in the pioneering stages.

Outstanding Sea Prose

These books are listed because each, in one way or another, captures the sea's varied and always changing moods; all are among my own favorite volumes.

Beston, Henry.
The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.
New York, Rinehart and Company, 1949. 222 pp.

Conrad, Joseph.
The Mirror of the Sea.
New York, Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1960. 304 pp. (Combined with Conrad's
A Personal Record.
)

Hughes, Richard
. In Hazard.
New York, Harper and Brothers, 1938. 279 pp. (also published by Penguin Books, 1943).

Melville, Herman.
Moby Dick.
Available in many editions, as Modern Library, New American Library, Pocket Books.

Nordhoff, Charles, and Hall, James Norman.
Men Against the Sea.
Boston, Little, Brown, 1934. 251 pp. (also published by Pocket Books, 1946).

Tomlinson, H. M.
The Sea and the Jungle.
New York, Modern Library, 1928. 332 pp. Paper: Dutton (Everyman).

These books provide further details about the topics discussed in the Afterword.

Sea Floor Spreading

Kennett, J.
Marine Geology.
Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1982.
An excellent textbook introducing the student to a vast subject.

Scientific American.
Ocean Science.
San Francisco, W. H. Freeman, 1977.
A book of readings about the ocean for the educated layman.

The Global Thermostat

Dansgaard, W., J. W. C. White, and S. J. Johnsen.
The abrupt termination of the Younger Dryas climate event.
Nature v. 339, 1989, pp. 532–5.
A short technical account of the rapidity of climatic change at the end of the last glacial age.

Houghton, R. A. and G. M. Woodwell.
Global climatic change.
Scientific American. v. 260, 1989, pp. 36–44.
An account of the significance of the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation to world climate.

Imbrie, John, and Katherine Palmer Imbrie. Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery. Short Hills, Enslow Publishers, 1979.
An historical account of the astronomical theories of the ice ages.

Jones, P. D., T. M. L. Wigley, and P. B. Wright.
Global temperature variations between 1861 and 1984.
Nature v. 322, 1986, pp. 430–434.
A technical account of global warming over the last century.

Extinctions

Stanley, S. M.
Extinction.
New York: Freeman, 1987.

Migrations and Larval Transport

Childress, R. J. and M. Trim.
Pacific Salmon.
University of Washington Press, 1979.
A beautifully illustrated popular description of the migrations and general biology of the Pacific salmon.

Harden Jones, F. R.
Fish Migration.
London: Edward Arnold, 1968.

Strathman, R. R.
Feeding and nonfeeding larval development and life-history evolution in marine invertebrates.
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, v. 16, 1985, pp. 339–361
. An excellent technical account of the nature of marine invertebrate larval development and dispersal.

Coral Reefs

Birkeland, C.
The Faustian traits of the crown-of-thorns starfish.
American Scientist, volume 77, 1989, pp. 154–163.

Levinton, J. S. 1982
. Marine Ecology.
Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1982.
Chapters 20 and 21 cover the biology of coral reefs.

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Many of the old basic works on the sea are now out of print but they are well worth pursuing in libraries for the excellent background they provide.

Acknowledgments

TO COPE ALONE
and unaided with a subject so vast, so complex, and so infinitely mysterious as the sea would be a task not only cheerless but impossible, and I have not attempted it. Instead, on every hand I have been given the most friendly and generous help by those whose work is the foundation and substance of our present knowledge of the sea. Specialists on many problems of the ocean have read chapters dealing with their fields of study and have made comments and suggestions based on their broad understanding. For such constructive help I am indebted to Henry B. Bigelow, Charles F. Brooks, and Henry C. Stetson of Harvard University; Martin W. Johnson, Walter H. Munk, and Francis P. Shepard of the Scrips Institution of Oceanography; Robert Cushman Murphy and Albert Eide Parr of the American Museum of Natural History; Carl O. Dunbar of Yale University; H. A. Marmer of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey; R. C. Hussey of the University of Michigan; George Cohee of the U.S. Geological Survey; and Hilary B. Moore of the University of Miami.