8 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



joy the fact that in the immense alembic of the ocean, 

 these health-breeding gases are generated, and that 

 the wind is ready to convey them to the land. 



Now, to bring this matter once for all within every- 

 body's comprehension. Suppose that an immense 

 number of fairly well educated people could be asked 

 the question, " What is the first elementary need of 

 man ? " they would undoubtedly answer, " Fresh air." 

 Few, indeed, are the folk to-day who do not know that 

 lack of fresh air kills as swiftly as a knife stab or a 

 bullet in a vital part. Of course it is strange that, in 

 the face of this universal knowledge, so many of us 

 should be content with stale air tainted air when 

 we might have it fresh ; but still more strange to my 

 idea is the fact that so many people are entirely 

 ignorant of what fresh air is or where it comes from. 

 Does the asthmatic, rising in the agony of suffocation, 

 and flinging open his bedroom window to the night 

 wind, ever realize to what he owes his relief and whence 

 it comes? I am safe in saying not once in ten 

 thousand times. And yet it is so simple : the source 

 of all fresh air is the sea. The verdant meadows, the 

 desert wastes, the mountain chains, the inland lakes 

 all these are pensioners upon the sea's bounty ; all these 

 take and do not give, save that the green leaves absorb 

 a poisonous gas and use it for the plants' upbuilding, 

 but they do not produce an equivalent blessing as does 

 the sea. The sea alone of all the earth's expanse is 

 actually engaged in gathering from all its elemental 

 resources matter for the service of man. It is a field 

 untilled that yields ever in richest profusion the 

 most sacred necessities of everyday life to the world's 

 inhabitants, and looks for nothing in return. It is, 



