32 : The Atlantic 



sional habits. Each of these habits has a good historical and logical 

 reason and each has produced good results. However, the accumu- 

 lated effect of using both of these devices in oceanography leaves the 

 general observer with an exaggerated sense of the shape and character 

 of the oceans. 



The first of these devices is the use of rather dramatic technical 

 names. In the old days when deep sea soundings were developing 

 slowly and the work of oceanographers was just beginning it was easy 

 and natural to pick up some popular phrase and use it in a technical 

 sense. Thus we had "the continental shelf," "the continental slope," 

 "the deep," "the abyss," "the trench" and a number of other words 

 that stir the popular imagination and suggest great depth. Such terms 

 now have become purely technical phrases and have a technical mean- 

 ing to the oceanographer. Their effect on the general reader is force- 

 ful though not exact. 



The second of these devices is the use of highly exaggerated pro- 

 files, charts, diagrams and three-dimensional models to illustrate the 

 structure of the ocean and its retaining floor. In these representations 

 the vertical scale or depth is greatly exaggerated in relation to the 

 horizontal scale or breadth. Sometimes the ratio is as much as i to 200. 

 The ordinary observer always inevitably forgets the figures and 

 remembers only the deep impressive pictures of the chasms. He car- 

 ries away the impression that the oceans are very deep, whereas he 

 ought to conclude that the use of such a scale is necessary because the 

 oceans in a physical sense are very shallow. 



At all events, at the present time, the prevailing popular impres- 

 sion seems to be that there is an enormous difference in elevation 

 between the mountains of the continents and the depths of the seas 

 with great chasms separating the continents one from another. The 

 picture of the earth which many people carry around with them sug- 

 gests that the earth is shaped something like a ball of wet clay that 

 has been grasped by a strong hand which has pushed up some areas 

 which we call continents and has left deep finger marks that have 

 somehow gotten filled up with water, and these we call the oceans. 



In order to correct our images I propose for a few moments to pro- 

 ject a cold, impersonal, or if you prefer, an inhuman view of the 

 ocean. Possibly this should be called an astronomer's view of the 

 ocean. 



Let us consider the ocean in relationship to the earth. We will use 

 round figures which we can easily remember. They will be a little 



