CHAPTER VII 



COASTLINES 



THE oceans of the world, waging incessant warfare 

 against its land surfaces, meet the land areas along 

 a series of twisting, receding, advancing coastlines 

 which are not ''no-man's-lands" of lifelessness and desola- 

 tion, but thronged battlefields of infinitely-varied activity. 

 Such shore-lines, extending around the world, are (by 

 reason of their complicated convolutions, their bays, 

 promontories and irregularities generally) hundreds of 

 thousands of miles in total length. Men have ''walked 

 around the world" but no human has ever contemplated 

 the colossal task of walking around the world's coastlines. 

 Such a journey would need many lifetimes. 



Picturing the coastlines as a vast net, with great breaks 

 and no regular meshes, or as a tangle of strings enveloping 

 the earth, it must be appreciated that no section of the 

 "string", however short, is without its teeming life. In 

 any single square mile where sea and land meet, through- 

 out the entire meshwork, countless myriads of creatures 

 live and die. No one has ever attempted a census of them. 

 Ignoring for a moment the creatures which live on the 

 ocean surfaces, and the enormous number which live in 

 its deeps, the tens of thousands of varieties of shore 

 animals comprise a "coastal population" which must be 

 millions of times greater than the world's human popu- 

 lation. 



From such an overwhelming multitude of living 

 creatures we can select only a few typical specimens. 

 The eyes of humans, aided by microscopes, behold only 



no 



