THE OCEAN 183 



III 

 THE OCEAN AS ENVIRONMENT 



There are, in accordance with our funda- 

 mental postulates of the characteristics of 

 life, two principal requirements of the living 

 organism which an environment must ful- 

 fill, — such a supply of matter and energy 

 for food as may be suitable to a complex 

 mechanism, and stability of conditions. 



After a general review of the chief character- 

 istics of the ocean, it is therefore necessary to 

 examine them more particularly in relation to 

 such requirements. In so doing it must not 

 be forgotten, however, that these characteristics 

 of the ocean which we have just discussed are 

 only in part due to the unique physical proper- 

 ties of water which have been already dis- 

 cussed in Chapter III, and to those of carbonic 

 acid which have been discussed in Chapter 

 IV. In part they depend upon the mere 

 magnitude of the sea, on the stability of the 

 solar system and the consequent antiquity of 

 the geological and meteorological processes, 

 and upon a great variety of astronomical and 

 geophysical conditions. However, we shall 

 only a little extend the scope of our inquiry 

 if we now consider water not only as an indi- 



