CHAPTER XIII 



seventy-four: an island of water 



My sub-title is not a mere meaningless catch 

 phrase, but a reality. In Ruth Rose's chapter on 

 Osborn Island she concerned herself, and rightly, 

 not only with the things bound to earth, but the 

 birds flying overhead and the sea-lions on the beach 

 who live their active lives beneath the waves. The 

 island of which I write is a tiny speck of the bottom 

 of the Pacific Ocean and my interest in this has 

 to do with both this bottom land and its inhabi- 

 tants, as well as with the host of creatures which 

 swims and floats to and fro over it, at various ele- 

 vations, up to the surface itself. 



I justify my title in another way. The diction- 

 ary defines island as a body of land entirely sur- 

 rounded by water, to which characterization my 

 island has the more logical right, for mine uses the 

 word surround in the completer sense of being 

 covered as well as margined by water. Etymology 

 even comes to my aid, in the old Anglo Saxon 

 ea-land, which may be interpreted water-land or 

 sea-land. This is exactly what I established in 

 mid-ocean. 



As to my title itself, taken from the number of 

 this station, no defense is required. Is it not the 

 most holy and lucky of numbers, containing the 



317 



