Vol. XIII, No. 9 WASHINGTON September, 1902 







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ATHOHAIL 

 MBAZE 



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PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC-THE GREAT 

 OCEAN IN WORLD GROWTH' 



By W J McGee, LL.D., 



Vice-President National Geographic Society 



THE greatest by far among great., 

 geographic features is the Pa- 

 cific basin, If all the conti- 

 nents and islands forming the face of 

 the earth were joined in one great conti- 

 nent, its extent would scarce equal that 

 of the great ocean ; and if the mass of 

 all the lands of the globe above sea-level 

 were poured into the Pacific, barely 

 more than an eighth of the basin would 

 be filled. Three fourths of our world- 

 surface is water ; a full third of this vast 

 expanse, or a quarter of the superficies 

 of the planet, is that of the great ocean, 

 while its abysses are of such depth that 

 a full half of the water of the earth is 

 gathered into its basin. In every view 

 the Pacific is vast, so vast as to tax if 

 not to outpass our powers of contempla- 

 tion. 



Nor is it only in the magnitude of the 

 basin that the Pacific is vast ; its area is 



indeed unequaled and its abysses un- 

 paralleled in profundity and extent, yet 

 the great world-scar becomes far more 

 striking when regarded as a record of 

 processes in planetary growth, and still 

 more when viewed as a theater of that 

 vital activity culminating in the growth 

 of races and peoples and the develop- 

 ment of high humanity. The basin is 

 bounded on the east by a wrinkle in the 

 terrestrial face which on closer view re- 

 solves itself into the longest and second 

 highest mountain system of the world, 

 whose rocks must hold our best record of 

 earlier world-making ; its other side, 

 half a world-circuit away, is skirted by 

 our greatest continent and several sub- 

 continents, which must give the globe's 

 best record of the later stages in world- 

 building ; while half its expanse is stud- 

 ded with islands which must tell elo- 

 quently of world-making whenever their 



*A lecture before the National Geographic Society, April 9, 1902. The summary and final 

 lecture of the Afternoon Course of the season 1901-1902 on the general subject, " Problems of 

 the Pacific." The course comprised also "Japan," by Prof. Ernest F. Fenollosa, March 12; 

 "Australia and New Zealand," by Henry Demarest Lloyd, March 19 (published in this num- 

 ber 1 ; "The Lesser Islands," by Dr. C. H. Townsend, March 25; and "The Commerce of the 

 Great Ocean," by Hon. O. P. Austin, April 2 (published in this volume, pp. 303-318). 



