10 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



benevolence were desiccated out of it until it arrives 

 as a scourge before which even the strongest must 

 cringe. What it would be did not the North Sea 

 intervene, let those unhappy dwellers upon Russian 

 steppes or German frontiers to Russia tell. Thank 

 God, we in this country know nothing personally of 

 their sufferings, as is most evident from the fuss we 

 make over a few days' frost or an evanescent snowstorm. 

 Our standards of comfort and good weather are very 

 high. 



Still, bitter as is the blast of the east wind over the 

 wild steppes, it bears health. We can scarcely blame 

 those hardly used millions for their ignorance of or 

 inattention to the most elementary rules of cleanliness 

 or sanitation. Behold, the universal cleanser, the 

 deodorizer comes, the wind from the clean sea, and 

 behind its triumphant path disease germs drop dead, 

 their career of infernal activity at an end. "Why, 

 then," those comfortless ones might argue did they 

 know or care aught about the matter, "should we 

 deprive ourselves of the simulacrum of comfort we now 

 and then obtain, by attempts at keeping ourselves 

 clean, which we regard as a waste of energy ? " Only 

 it seems such a pity that men should thwart actively 

 the efforts of the sun and the fresh wind from the sea 

 to keep them alive by barring out as far as they are 

 able these two mighty agents of health. 



Now, on the borders of the great Mediterranean 

 sea, which is, after all, but an exaggerated lake of salt 

 water, the sea does not get fair play for its beneficent 

 labours. In the first place, there are no regular wind 

 currents to convey the ozone shoreward, and, in the 

 next, the circulation of the waters is largely carried on 



