About This Book : 13 



about. He waited until a book came up to him and tapped him on the 

 chest and insisted on being written. Even so I would never have 

 completed the book had it not been for two encouraging factors. 



The first factor was that those who read the early efforts or who 

 listened to the story as I put it together believed in the final outcome. 



The second factor is my experience with the Atlantic and my belief 

 in it. For some years I was fortunate enough to have sailed about the 

 Atlantic in my own ship. Either then or at other times I have visited 

 many of its ports; crossed it on many different courses and in many 

 different vessels from antique square-riggers to the fastest of modern 

 ships, from great leviathans to snug little "tabloids." I have been on 

 my feet for days while my ship fought through hurricane winds on 

 the high seas and I have made up for this by drowsing away a season 

 in a cozy little cove. I have seen the northern seas gray with ice 

 shaken in the grip of a winter gale and seen the ocean a sheet of 

 molten gold under a tropic moon. These are all aspects of the same 

 ocean and they are things never to be forgotten. 



The early efforts were by no means wasted but they have been cut 

 down and condensed. The important change however is that an at- 

 tempt has been made to relate each part to every other part so that it 

 can be seen that the ocean and its shores, the winds and currents, the 

 ships and the men that sailed them all played concerted roles in the 

 great drama that is human history and human civilization. 



To assist the reader in becoming familiar with the ocean and with 

 this book I have gone through it and have set out below some score 

 of special statements. There is no room in this chapter and no at- 

 tempt is made here to tell the full stories, list the evidence or set forth 

 the arguments in support of these ideas. They are Usted because they 

 should be looked at together and because they tell in part what the 

 book is all about. Indeed, I would be disappointed if the reader 

 accepted these points without question but gready pleased if curios- 

 ity or doubt lead him to the main chapters where there is an oppor- 

 tunity to trace out the structure, character and life story of our 

 ocean. 



1. We have grown up with an arbitrary and false notion about the 

 world. In writing and in making maps we have split the Atlantic, 

 creating an eastern and a western hemisphere, an old world and a 

 new one. This has obscured the historic and present importance of 

 the Atlantic to the welfare and safety of the world. 



2. It is just as accurate and much more useful and illuminating to 

 divide the world into a water hemisphere and a land hemisphere. The 



