Atlantic Health, Wealth and Sanity : 445 



iron curtain show that faulty distribution grows alongside of inade- 

 quate production as one of the twin roots of communist poverty. 



Trends may reverse themselves and no one knows enough about 

 all the elements and ingredients to be quite positive of the future. The 

 probability, however, is that population will continue to increase, that 

 our soil over large areas will be overused and depleted of elements 

 that make it fertile and that make its products healthful and nourish- 

 ing to man. The ocean is the ultimate recipient and storehouse of the 

 great majority of all these elements. It seems likely, therefore, that 

 men will increasingly turn to the oceans as a source of needed food- 

 stuffs, of chemicals, of minerals and maybe someday also of heat and 

 power. 



Another kind of valuation might be put upon an ocean because it 

 contains the important fisheries of the world and thus supplies a con- 

 stituent of human diet. The products of the different fisheries are 

 recorded in weight of the annual catch and a million pounds of fish 

 per annum forms a convenient unit. On this basis, annual production 

 for the world is 55,000 million pounds. Of this amount European fish- 

 eries (exclusive of the USSR) account for 13,200 million pounds — 

 these would be entirely Atlantic Ocean fisheries. North and Central 

 America account for 8,300 million pounds. This would be split be- 

 tween Atlantic and Pacific fisheries. South America, despite its long 

 coastline on both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, produces only 

 1,100 million pounds. Oceania, despite the fact that it is everywhere 

 embedded in the ocean, produces only 300 million pounds. Asia (ex- 

 clusive of the USSR) produces 26,400 million pounds. This includes 

 the Indian Ocean as well as Pacific Ocean fisheries. 



The above comments sound as though the ocean fisheries were the 

 only ones contributing to the human diet. This is almost but not 

 quite the case. Included in the above figures are also the fresh water 

 fisheries, but of all the fish caught 40,000 million pounds come from 

 the ocean fisheries. 



Now another interesting fact emerges, namely, that the deep wa- 

 ters and open oceans contribute few fish that are eaten by man. The 

 primary reason is that edible fish in large numbers breed and live in 

 the shallow slopes of the ocean and in the shallow seas. Supplemen- 

 tary reasons may be that fishermen, for the most part, lack the meth- 

 ods, the equipment and the ships to make deep-water fishing possible. 

 Also, if it were possible, it might not prove economically valuable. 



One authority puts the matter this way. The shallow ocean waters 

 and the shallow seas account for only 7 per cent of the total ocean 



