4 THE OCEAN RIVER 



the waters of the sea do not move in horizontal courses alone, 

 for the sun creates variations of temperature which move the 

 surface waters and the cold depths vertically in actions that 

 make a constant and living unity of the oceans. These actions 

 create conditions favorable to the life within, and so in turn 

 sustain mankind. 



So if we look at a current we must look at a climate. If we 

 consider a climate we must consider how it affects the life of 

 man. If we study the depths of the sea we learn not only of the 

 teeming life within the sea, but secrets of subocean geology 

 are revealed that help us to understand our land-bound en- 

 vironment. In other words, there can be nothing unrelated 

 between man and the immediate world he lives in, and it is 

 this that has imposed a certain pattern to our book and made 

 the frame of our picture. We start building the frame with the 

 rock that molds the ocean bed. We watch the waters that move 

 within this foundation and study the forces that drive them 

 on and control their action. We see man put out adventur- 

 ously upon these waters to new lands and fresh ways of life. 

 We see how certain climates, created by the warmth of these 

 waters and the storms above them, are favorable for the growth 

 of strong civilizations. And finally, looking more closely upon 

 the complex of the Ocean River, we discover a vast new fron- 

 tier of discovery which the young science of oceanography 

 has just begun to explore. Oceanography in itself is a team 

 of several more restricted fields of scientific inquiry, and is 

 forced to function as a team because man is forced to regard 

 the ocean as a total environment. So we find chemists, meteor- 

 ologists, biologists, geologists, and students of what is called 

 human geography, all pooling their efforts to solve the mystery 

 of the deep and moving sea. 



We know that somewhere, somehow, in the great circle of 

 creation there was a slight punctuation called the globe. Then 



