horseshoe crab across a mud flat and 

 exposed a toadfish concealed in 

 eelgrass. She divulged the telltale 

 tentacles of a sand anemone searching 

 the waves for detritus and the "pro- 

 truding chimneys" of the plumed 

 worm Diopatra. 



Carson had become one of the 

 most popular writers in America. Her 

 articles about sea life appeared 

 regularly in magazines as diverse as 

 Life, Audubon and Woman 's Home 

 Companion. She had received the 

 highest honors awarded to writers and 

 scientists. Many people would have 

 rested on their laurels. Carson could 

 surely have spent more days by her 

 beloved seashore. 



But "The Edge of the Sea" was 

 Carson's last book about the ocean. 

 By the late 1950s, a large body of 

 evidence had accumulated about the 

 dangerous effects on living organisms 

 of DDT and other organic pesticides 

 made out of chlorinated hydrocarbons. 

 This information remained widely 

 scattered and had not reached the 

 public. The pesticides were still used 

 with little restraint or public oversight. 



As one of the few popular writers 

 with the expertise to sift through 

 complex scientific data, Carson 

 believed it was her duty to expose the 

 dangers of these chemical agents that, 

 developed mainly for use during 

 World War II, had become a part of 

 daily life. 



Carson had been troubled by 

 atomic bomb testing in the Pacific, but 

 she was not a protester. Privately, 

 though, she had grave reservations 

 about science's new threats to the 

 Earth. "It was comforting to suppose," 

 she wrote Freeman in February 1958, 

 "that the stream of life would flow on 

 through time in whatever course that 

 God had appointed it — without 

 interference by one of the drops of the 

 stream — man." 



Until "Silent Spring," Carson had 

 used her fame mainly to encourage 

 parents to nurture in children a sense 

 of wonder at the natural world. She 



still felt more at home at Bird Shoal 

 than in a bully pulpit. She did not 

 relish controversy, and she was not at 

 heart a political person. 



Yet Carson never hesitated when 

 it came to "Silent Spring," not even 

 when diagnosed with cancer in 1960. 

 She studied more than a thousand 

 scientific papers. She consulted with 

 the world's leading entomologists, 

 chemists and ecologists. When she put 

 pen to paper, Carson brandished her 

 facts — in the words of the old hymn 

 — like a terrible swift sword. 



Published in 1962, "Silent 

 Spring" revealed how pesticides 

 accumulated in the food chain, 

 damaging birds, fish and even 

 humans. It was a stunning achieve- 

 ment and an overnight sensation. 

 Never had a scientific work sparked 

 such widespread public debate — nor 

 such bitter repudiations. 



"The 'control of nature,'" Carson 

 wrote, "is a phrase conceived in 

 arrogance, born of the Neanderthal 

 age of biology and philosophy ... . It is 

 our alarming misfortune that so 

 primitive a science has armed itself 

 with the most modern and terrible 

 weapons, and that in turning them 

 against the insects it has also turned 

 them against the Earth." 



Not surprisingly, the chemical 

 industry was the harshest critic of 

 "Silent Spring." A Chicago chemical 

 company sought to have the book 

 suppressed by the courts. The industry 

 devoted a fortune to try to discredit 

 Carson and labeled her a "hysterical 

 woman." Daunted by the controversy, 

 several magazines, including Readers' 

 Digest, backed out of publishing 

 excerpts of "Silent Spring." One 

 sympathetic critic called it the most 

 vilified book since Charles Darwin's 

 "Origin of Species." 



Despite the chemical industry's 

 attacks, "Silent Spring" met enthusias- 

 tic praise from most scientists and 

 became a huge, worldwide best seller. 

 A year later, President Kennedy's 

 Science Advisory Committee issued a 



detailed report substantiating Carson's 

 claims. Confronted by public outrage, 

 the United States and other world 

 governments enacted important 

 reforms governing the use of pesti- 

 cides. Inspiring a sweeping ecological 

 consciousness, "Silent Spring" became 

 one of the most influential books of the 

 20th century. 



Where did Carson find the moral 

 courage to write "Silent Spring"? The 

 sources of such courage are by nature 

 mysterious, deep, perhaps unknowable. 

 Yet I suspect that the origins of "Silent 

 Spring" lay, ultimately, in her quiet 

 hours of getting to know Bird Shoal, 

 Lake Mattamuskeet and places like 

 them. By those quiet shores, Carson 

 gained a knowledge of the sea's life 

 that led to an empathy and a sense of 

 interconnectedness with the natural 

 world. She could not stand idly by 

 when something she knew and cared 

 for so deeply was threatened. 



That is why I believe so firmly in 

 exposing children to our coast — and 

 why our dedicated science teachers and 

 marine educators deserve our highest 

 praise. When they introduce children 

 to the seashore, they offer a chance to 

 discover more than the arcane facts of 

 marine biology. They are teaching 

 them about the glories of all life, and 

 they are giving them the opportunity to 

 explore their own humanity and its 

 place among the creatures of the 

 world. I do not see anything that could 

 be more important. And who knows 

 which child on a school trip to Bird 

 Shoal — or Masonboro Island or 

 Merchants Millpond — is the next 

 Rachel Carson? □ 



David 

 Cecelski is a 

 historian at the 

 University of 

 North Carolina- 

 Chapel Hill's 

 Southern 

 Oral History 



a regular columnist for Coastwatch. 



COASTWATCH 23 



