CHAPTER II 



ARE THERE OCEANS IN 

 OUTER SPACE? 



THE deeps of the world's oceans are easily accessible 

 when compared with the appalling abysses which 

 separate us from the stars, or even those which 

 stretch between our world and the nearest planets in our 

 solar system. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, is so 

 remote that light, travelling at 186,300 miles per second, 

 takes over four years to reach us. Mars and Venus, the 

 two nearest members of our sun's family, are very roughly 

 40 million miles away. Compared with such distances a 

 journey down into the ocean deeps of a few miles seems a 

 mere step. 



Any kind of exploration of the 4,000 miles of solid 

 earth or rock that separates us from the centre of the 

 earth would indeed be a formidable task — perhaps even 

 more impossible than a voyage across space to Proxima 

 Centauri. The internal regions of the earth may forever 

 remain unknown to us, save for anything we may learn of 

 them by the use of seismographs and similar appliances. 



But if these considerations give us an impression that 

 the accumulation of knowledge regarding the world's 

 oceans is a comparatively easy matter, we should pause 

 to reflect that any voyage upward towards the planets or 

 stars must be one through space, while a journey down 

 into the ocean takes us through vast multitudes of living 

 creatures — untold millions of them in every foot or so of 

 sea water that we pass through. 



Before we begin our imaginative voyage — across the 



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