A WONDERER UNDER SEA I 5 



sea-water is an admirable temporary substitution for our 

 very life's blood. The reason for this is the fact that if 

 we examine a sample of human blood and an equal amount 

 of sea-water we will find that, while both are salt, our 

 own life blood is three times fresher than the salt water. 

 So all we have to do is to calculate back and find the time 

 when the ocean was only one-third as salt as at present, 

 and then, "Best Beloved," we will know exactly when to 

 celebrate the anniversary of our marine emancipation. 

 This seems to me a very wonderful thing, to walk about 

 on land today, vitalized by a bit of the ancient seas swirl- 

 ing through our body. It is somehow of a piece with stars 

 and time and space — something to be very quiet and 

 thoughtful about, and proud of. 



The most unimaginative man in the world must have 

 had, at some moment during an ocean voyage, a sudden 

 overwhelming sense of the courage of the earliest navi- 

 gators, of the high-hearted, all but superhuman daring 

 that urged them forth upon a vast uncharted sea. The 

 actual perils of the open ocean were very real to those 

 compassless cockleshells called ships, while its fabled dan- 

 gers were only limited by the failure of imagination, and 

 were quite irrefutable. No man knew, so no man could 

 deny. Phoenicians, venturing out of sight of land, might 

 serve as the epitome of that restless spirit that brought 

 man out of the Stone Age, that driving need to experi- 

 ment, to know, that overrides fear and turns unnum- 

 bered cravens into unknown heroes. 



