6th Paragraph
There is no doubt that people are growing more and more interested in the seas and that there is a great need for that interest. Men have long tried to probe the secretes of the ocean to gain knowledge for it6s own sake, but there are other practical reasons for doing so. The sea can provide us with many things that we need in every day life. Future generations will probably draw far more on the seas for their food, and not only food in the form of fish. Minerals necessary for modern industries are there also, when we can find out how to extract them.
We have explored and mapped most of the land and we are quickly exploring the air. The seas present a greater difficulty because we cannot yet, and probably never shall be able to, set foot on the deep ocean floor.
The aim of the extensive ocean going expeditions, and of the marine biological stations around the coasts, and even of those who simply study the shore uncovered by the tide, is to build up our knowledge of this vast and unfamiliar world beneath the waves. In some cases the knowledge gained can put to practical use, but much of it is for interest only.
For the very early mariners, interest lay in the current, and especially those at the surface, that carried their ships along. They were also interested in the weather over the sea. Yet, even these hard-bitten seamen were not immune from a curiosity about the animals and plants that lived below the waves. Their first impulse may have been to seek trade overseas, or to fish for food, but over and above this anything strange or beautiful, whether brought up on their nets or cast ashore by the tides, caused them to wonder. So, from the earliest time, the pursuit of the practical everyday things went on side by side with the inquiry that springs from a desire to know more. Bit by bit grew the knowledge of the physical feature, of the seas of such things as currents, waves, and winds, as well as of the biology, the knowledge of animals and plants.
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