Atlantic Health, Wealth and Sanity : 449 



the continents is expressed by the fact that the Atlantic has a longer 

 coastline than the Pacific and the Indian Oceans combined. 



This structure of the Atlantic increases the value of two other 

 services that the ocean performs. The first of these is the ocean's 

 effect on climate; the second is its service as a means of communica- 

 tion and transport. The well-organized system of winds and cur- 

 rents of the Atlantic are of the utmost importance in tempering our 

 climate and regularizing our lives. All of the world's heat and power 

 ultimately derives from the sun and most of the sunlight that falls 

 upon the world falls upon ocean water. Air heats up quickly and 

 cools quickly but fortunately ocean water has a capacity to absorb 

 heat, to store it and convey it and to give it up slowly. 



This difference between air and water is of the greatest practical 

 importance. If you want to warm up by one degree, ten cubic feet of 

 air, you will expend in the process a certain amount of heat. To 

 warm ten cubic feet of water will require 3,000 times as much heat. 

 This relationship helps us to understand how the Atlantic performs a 

 useful service in slowly absorbing great volumes of excess heat poured 

 on it in the tropics, later giving up the heat in our northern climates 

 where it is so badly needed. For, of course, this system works both 

 ways, for when our ten cubic feet of water cools off by one degree in 

 a northern climate, it will heat by one degree a volume of air 3,000 

 times as great as itself. 



The human air conditioning of buildings depends on the extraor- 

 dinary capacity of water (or some other fluid) to absorb heat so that 

 a small volume of water can influence a very large volume of air. 

 In somewhat the same way the perpetually moving waters of the ocean 

 influence the weather and the climate of the continents. In particular, 

 Europe may be said to have an air-conditioned or rather a water-con- 

 ditioned climate benefiting from the very extraordinary movements of 

 the Gulf Stream system. 



Considering the size of the continent, Europe is fortunate in pos- 

 sessing a relatively large proportion of productive agricultural soil. It 

 benefits from the warm climate imparted by the Gulf Stream. At the 

 same time it is a territory well up in northern latitudes so that it has 

 the advantage of long and uninterrupted hours of spring and sum- 

 mer sunshine. This is an almost unique and unbeatable combination 

 of geographic blessings. 



The greatest of Atlantic powers, and the greatest benefit it confers 

 on man, is its service as a method of transport and communication. In 

 this service all other features of the Atlantic are combined: the length 



