Chapter 



26 



ATLANTIC HEALTH, 

 WEALTH AND SANITY 



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HAT is the value of an ocean? 



This is a big question and one that it is possible to answer in vari- 

 ous ways. One way is to rephrase the question. What is there in the 

 ocean that man finds valuable? 



A hasty answer might be, "I can find nothing in sea water — it's free 

 — it has no value because there is so much of it." 



This is too hasty an answer. Actually, though it cannot be seen, 

 sea water contains, dissolved within itself, practically every mineral 

 or chemical that man finds valuable including silver, gold, uranium, 

 etc., and there is so much sea water that the sum total of what is dis- 

 solved in the sea becomes a fabulous storehouse of value. If all the sol- 

 ids that are dissolved in the ocean waters were suddenly dropped out 

 of them, or as the chemists say precipitated, the amount in metric 

 tons of these solids could be expressed by the figure five with sixteen 

 zeros following it. This would form a layer on the crust of the earth 

 of forty-five meters or about 150 feet; or, if the solid matter were 

 squeezed out of the ocean and deposited only on the land, the layer 

 would be 153 meters thick or roughly 500 feet. 



Now man judges the value of his things in gold and silver which 

 he uses in his currency. Therefore the amount of gold and silver in 

 the sea might give us one way of judging its value. First, it would 

 appear that the precious metals were very poorly represented in sea 



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