THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



dry land above sea level. Incidentally, these figures give 

 us a far better idea of the relative proportions of the 

 world's seas and lands. ''Seven-eighths of the world's 

 surface" gives us a seven-to-one ratio, because it merely 

 compares the land and sea surfaces. Taking the sea as an 

 occupied world or realm, and generously allowing the 

 entire dry land surface above sea-level, vertically as 

 well as horizontally, as man's habitation, the ocean's 

 dominion is fourteen times greater than that of the 

 land. 



Compared with the enormous volume of the world's 

 oceans, the waves of the sea are microscopically insig- 

 nificant disturbances. Atlantic gales may produce waves 

 which are truly enormous from any human viewpoint — 

 waves often thirty feet from trough to crest, and some- 

 times a quarter of a mile from crest to crest. Double the 

 average height — thirty feet — often attained by waves in 

 furious gales, and you have the figure (sixty feet) some- 

 times given in books as the greatest possible height of an 

 ocean wave. One was officially recorded in 1933, how- 

 ever, which actually exceeded that height. It is the 

 world's record wave. 



On the night of the Gth-yth February that year, the 

 U.S.S. RamapOy proceeding from Manila to San Diego 

 during a 68-knot (78.3 m.p.h.) gale, measured that 

 highest-of-all waves as 1 1 2 feet from trough to crest. 



Terrifyingly high though such waves must appear to 

 seamen menaced by them, any such disturbed area of 

 the sea is actually tranquil and flat in comparison with 

 the vast area of the ocean surrounding it. So with the 

 entire volume of the world's waters. To us they are 

 inconceivably immense. In truth all the water in the 

 world's oceans is so minute in comparison with our solar 

 system that, to grasp their real cosmic significance, we 

 must see our sun and its nine major planets as a scorched 

 and almost waterless desert. 



Water in its various forms is at present our ally and 



28 



