THE BOUNTIFUL SEA

Hull's survey of the bounties of the sea is both wide-ranging and thorough, as if determined to mention every piece of current information about undersea geology, marine biology and technical innovations for measuring the sea physically and harvesting its resources. But, in its very intentness upon including all, it misses that sense of consuming mystery which actually plunges the reader into the sea in the recent The Abyss (see p. 442). Both books cover much the same ground. While Sea is strongest in its review of man's coming technical mastery of the ocean, Abyss is an almost Darwinian undertaking in its multitudinous catalogues of sea flora and fauna and flora-fauna. One of the more interesting investigations of Sea is a look at the future relief of the world's starving populations by use of protein flours derived from trash fish. In this process the whole fish is used, head, tail and intestine, let these are the very parts where vitamin concentration is greatest. The largest portion of the book compares the U.S. and Russian submarine fleets, but again this is a subject which has occupied whole volumes this year.