THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



All our human investigations fail to detect the presence 

 of any water on the planet — not even pools of it. Jupiter 

 definitely has no oceans. 



Beyond Jupiter lie Saturn (with its amazing ring 

 system), Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We need not con- 

 sider the three outermost planets in detail. Very little is 

 known of them, and anything we do know suggests that 

 conditions on them resemble those on Saturn — con- 

 ditions quite waterless. The rings of Saturn may be 

 composed of vast clouds of dust, or grains of sand, with 

 larger bodies among them. The average density of 

 Saturn is less than that of water. 



There can be no oceans on the surfaces of the four 

 outermost planets — most certainly none containing 

 animal or plant life. Their enormous distances from the 

 sun — the nearest of the four outermost planets is more 

 than nine times farther out from the sun than our own 

 planet — clearly indicate that they are waterless, frozen 

 worlds. 



We have found, in our rapid survey of the sun's nine 

 major planets, that water only exists in any quantity in 

 our own world. 



In the light of all these facts, how infinitely precious is 

 this film of water which covers our spinning globe ! It 

 may be that the ocean, with its hosts of living creatures, 

 is absolutely unique, not merely in our solar system, but 

 in the entire Cosmos, with its millions of millions of 

 systems. 



Earth, air and water — each designed to support multi- 

 tudinous forms of life on our planet — are three distinct 

 worlds. Of the three, water is by far the most densely 

 populated. As we survey the surfaces, fringes and deeps 

 of the ocean we become increasingly convinced that it 

 constitutes a wonderland of singular beauty and fantasy. 

 We go *' through the looking-glass" of its sky-reflecting 

 surface to find, in Alice's own words, that it gets 

 "curiouser and curiouser". 



32 



