TREASURE FROM THE SEA 



the tissue, has been accompanied with epithelial cells. Epithelial 

 cells must be in contact with the pearl nucleus and these nacre 

 producing cells are found only on the outside of the oyster mantle, 

 i.e. next to the shell. This is the theory on which the more than 

 100 pearl farms operate in Japan, the largest of which is the 

 Mikimoto Company. Kokichi Mikimoto, founder of the Mikimoto 

 Company, died a few years ago at the advanced age of ninety-five. 

 He often attributed his health and longevity to the fact that he ate 

 two crushed pearls for breakfast each day. 



AMBERGRIS 



The sole source of this treasure of the deep, is the sperm whale. 

 The fact that it is produced in the intestine of the sperm whale is 

 well known. The manner of formation, or how it is formed, how- 

 ever, is still a subject of debate and conjecture. Although ambergris 

 has been found in numerous places, the majority has been recovered 

 in the middle latitudes, as the sperm whale is basically a temperate 

 water animal. 



When ambergris is ejected by the whale, it resembles black 

 stones. It is abominably malodorous, but as it spends more and 

 more time floating on the sea its odor improves somewhat. It 

 lightens in color also with age, fading to shades of brown and 

 eventually becoming a chalky white. 



The uses of ambergris have been many and various throughout 

 the ages, with strange powers attributed to it. It has been used as 

 an aphrodisiac, a condiment in food, drink, tobacco and medicines. 

 Its current use, however, is devoted primarily in the manufacture 

 of perfumes. It is used as a fi.xative in the manufacture of only 

 the most expensive perfumes and it is for this reason that the scent 

 of perfumes made with ambergris will last much longer. 



Most of the ambergris now comes from the whaling industry, 

 with ships and beachcombers reporting occasional finds. Sizes of 

 ambergris found vary from less than an ounce to some 982 pounds. 

 As the size of finds vary so does value, ranging from $2 to $9 per 

 ounce, in accordance with the market and quality. A further 

 example is a 151 pound 8 ounce chunk that sold in the United States 

 for $20,000.00. Although not as valuable as it once was, due partially 

 to synthetics, it does promise its finders a considerable reward. 



AQUACULTURE 



As the term implies, aquaculture is the cultivating and managing 

 of the ocean's resources in much the same way foresters and 

 farmers husband the land's resources. Aquaculture is a word not 

 too well known today, but a subject that has enormous possibilities 

 and is gaining world wide popularity. There is no doubt that further 

 improvements to increase yield will be made in agriculture. The 

 land area, however, is limited and hence must obviously limit the 

 quantity of food it can produce. This limit has been reached and 

 indeed has been exceeded in many locations of the world. Conse- 

 quently, our need to turn again to the sea, as aquaculture is the 

 means most conducive to conquering the world's undernourishment. 



Zooplankton feeding on phytoplankton, the basis of the sea's food chain. 

 Enlarged about 15 diameters. 



Oceanographers have calculated that approximately nine times 

 as much vegetation is available in our seas as is cultivated on land. 

 The main bulk of this vegetable life consists of microscopic plank- 

 ton, upon which zooplankton (small grazing sea animals) feed. And, 

 zooplankton in turn is eaten by fishes— a cycle similar to the one 

 on land in which grass is eaten by cattle and converted to beef. 

 Actually, this chain of life in our seas has its beginning with sun- 

 shine and the dissolved chemicals in the water, for it is upon these 



that vegetable plankton prosper. The ocean currents and tides 

 tend to stir the plankton's food supply of nutrients, with the 

 smallest changes in quantity of nitrogen or phosphorus having a 

 direct bearing on plankton population. Hence, this in turn, affects 

 the entire chain of life in the sea, as animal life is basically depend- 

 ent upon plant life. 



The aquacultural concept has led scientists and oceanographers 

 to speculate regarding methods to herd fish, increase and improve 

 the stock and increase the richness of waters via forced upwelling. 

 For, where the waters are rich in nutrients there is a bloom of 

 plankton and hence a far heavier concentration of fish. 



On land it takes considerable more acreage to raise a ton of 

 beef than it does to grow a ton of wheat or corn. Similarly, the 

 same situation holds in ocean pasturage. The advantages a farmer 

 gains by growing vegetables in lieu of beef are quite small compared 

 to those that could be gained were it feasible to harvest plankton 

 directly, instead of having the fishes harvest it for us. This is due 

 to the extended ladder of life in the sea, between plankton and man. 

 If man could harvest plankton directly, he could increase the 

 ocean's food yield by as much as a thousand times. At each link 

 in the chain of sea life there is considerable waste, for whether it is 

 zooplankton feeding on vegetable plankton or large fish devouring 

 smaller ones, there is about 90 percent loss of energy or food. It 

 therefore follows that it takes approximately 1,000 pounds of plant 

 plankton to produce one pound of medium size fish with increasing 

 amounts for the development of larger fish such as tuna. 



If man could bypass the process and go directly to the bottom 

 of the sea's ladder of life, there would be a tremendous saving of 

 food materials. This currently is not economically feasible due to 

 the high cost of pumping and sieving. In addition, the final product 

 would be one barely palatable. So until a revolutionary technique 

 is developed, man will have to depend on the fishes of the sea for 

 conversion. 



Even though we cannot yet economically harvest plankton, we 

 can aid in the growth of plankton and thus advance the fish harvest. 

 This can be accomplished by bringing to the surface the rich bottom 

 nutrients on which plankton flourish, i.e. by forced upwelling. Where 

 upwelling occurs naturally it causes plankton to bloom and fish to 

 congregate, a good example of which is the Grand Banks of New- 

 foundland. Here the Gulf Stream meets the Labrador Current, 

 causing a complex vertical circulation and produces an area of 

 constantly renewed fertility. Another example of copious sea life, 

 is off the coast of Peru. The prevailing winds along the west coast 

 of South America are offshore. Water thus is blown offshore and 

 is replaced by the nutrient rich deep waters of the north flowing 

 Peru Current. Consequently, upon reaching the Peruvian portion 

 of the Continental Shelf these waters produce sea life unsurpassed 

 elsewhere in the world— phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and even 

 numerous sea birds are in abundance. Such are the possibilities of 

 aquaculture. 



The farming phase of aquaculture also offers many possibilities, 

 for the most astonishing fact about sea life is the tremendous loss 

 of young. A single female Cod, for example, will produce from one 

 to five million eggs each season. For the species to continue in exist- 

 ence, only two of these eggs need survive to maturity. Here we 

 have a tremendous egg potential offset by enormous mortality. As 

 the eggs develop, they float to the sea surface and become a part 

 of existing plankton, which is destined to be eaten by other fishes. 

 After developing into small fry, the remainder tends to settle near 

 the bottom where they attain their best growth in five or six years. 



There is little that can be done to cause more of the cod eggs to 

 grow into adult fishes, as they are affected by various factors. To 

 raise young fish in huge numbers artificially for transplanting with- 

 out providing additional food, would be similar to a farmer trying 

 to double his land's yield by planting twice as many seeds. Life in 

 the sea exists almost entirely by cannibalism and the rate of 

 destruction would be high until the numbers of fish had been 

 reduced to the natural food level. Actually, if the majority of fish 

 eggs were not destroyed, the oceans would soon overflow with fish. 

 This point may be further stressed by using the oyster as an 

 example. For, if the progeny of a single pair of oysters survived 

 100 percent, in five oyster generations their combined bulk would 

 be equal to approximately eight times the size of the earth! 



14 



