2 THE OCEAN 



upon the great area now occupied by the 

 waters of the ocean and could wander over 

 the vast bed of the sea we would surely see 

 many things which would be totally different 

 from anything we had ever seen, or imagined. 



In the depths of the sea lie the greatest of 

 the ocean's mysteries, and while for many 

 years vast sums of money and an immense 

 amount of time have been expended in explor- 

 ing the ocean depths, yet we really know very 

 little about them. 



To be sure we have made countless sound- 

 ings throughout the seven seas, we have 

 dredged and trawled in stupendous depths, 

 we have recorded pressures and temperatures 

 at the bottom of the ocean; from the mys- 

 terious depths we have drawn weird, strange 

 forms of life and we have made charts, maps 

 and models of the ocean's bed; but after all, 

 what does it amount to? We know that cer- 

 tain places have certain depths, that there are 

 elevated and depressed regions, that in some 

 spots there are certain kinds of material at the 

 bottom and that some of the denizens of the 

 sea are of certain forms, but all this gives us 



