3 



Chapter 



BEHAVIOR OF THE ATLANTIC 



A 



TLANTIC behavior is full of strange tricks and curious 

 surprises. This, at least, is the way matters appear to the observer who 

 is making his first acquaintance with this ocean. Meeting some odd 

 performance for the first time he will first feel he has come upon a 

 unique freak or singular accident; when the event is repeated he feels 

 that man must have a hand in it; finally, as he becomes familiar 

 with habits and patterns of the ocean, what at first seemed accidents 

 turn out to be orderly parts of the ocean's behavior when viewed over 

 long distances and considerable periods of time. 



Here, to begin with, are some cases in which the Atlantic has acted 

 in its own natural fashion on natural objects, without human inter- 

 vention. Later we can consider cases where the ocean has acted on 

 man-made objects and more complicated events where man and 

 ocean act together. 



In Central America, from Panama on up into Mexico, the year 

 is divided into a wet season and a dry season. Every year during the 

 wet season some of the great trees of the tropical forests along the 

 rivers come to a violent end. Some are blown down and fall into the 

 river; others standing on the banks have the earth washed out from 

 beneath their roots by the rising waters of the river until the banks 

 collapse and they topple into the stream. In either case some of these 

 trees will be carried downstream and delivered into the Caribbean or 

 the Gulf of Mexico where the Adantic Ocean takes charge. 



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