Origins of the Book, *The Sea Around Us*

By Rachel L. Carson

People often ask me how long I worked on THE SEA AROUND US. I usually reply that in a sense I have been working on it all my life, although the actual writing of the book occupied only about three years. As a very small child I was fascinated by the ocean, although I had never seen it. I dreamed of it and longed to see it, and I read all the sea literature I could find. In college I drifted naturally enough into biology and soon came to specialize in marine zoology. I spent several summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where I was almost literally surrounded by the ocean. There I could see the racing tidal currents pouring through the "Hole" or watch the waves breaking at Nobska Point after a storm, and there I first became really aware of the unseen ocean currents, for masses of drifting sargassum weed would come in from the distant Gulf Stream after a storm, and tropical creatures like the beautiful Portuguese man-of-war were carried in from the warm river of water offshore.

At Woods Hole, too, I first had an introduction to a large library specializing in the field that so fascinated me. It was immensely exciting to discover the rich but greatly scattered information about the sea that was contained in both old and new books, and in the bewildering variety of scientific journals that the excellent library of the Marine Biological Laboratory contains. I used to spend long hours searching for the answers to questions that filled my mind.

The Sea Around Us - 2

At that time I had not the slightest idea that one day my own book about the sea would stand on the shelves of that same library, but I am sure that the genesis of THE SEA AROUND US belongs to that first year at Woods Hole, when I began storing away facts about the sea -- by facts discovered in scientific literature or in personal observation and experience.

A few years later, as a biologist for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, I began to have opportunities to work in marine laboratories on other parts of the coast and now and then to go out on fishing boats or research vessels. Along with a friend who was writing a magazine piece on the fisheries, I was one of the first women ever to take part in a cruise of the ALBATROSS III. In fact I imagine that few women besides ourselves have ever visited Georges Bank -- where the ALBATROSS was making a census of the fish population -- for these waters are well off the EEMXX path of ocean liners and are visited only by fishing boats.

The night before we went aboard the crew entertained us with gruesome tales of the accidents, seasickness, and rough seas that were said to be part of normal life on the ALBATROSS. None of these horrors materialized quite as predicted, but our shipmates did not prepare us for one very real and disconcerting fact. The census work of the vessel involved dragging the trawl for a specified number of minutes on each of several scores of locations marked on the charts. Whenever the vessel arrived at one of these "stations" the net was let down and fishing began -- whether the time was 3 p.m. or 3 a.m. Our cabin was almost directly under the big winches that controlled the heavy cables of the nets; just outside the wall of our cabin the massive oak "doors" of the trawl struck with a reverberating crash when the net was hauled

The Sea Around Us - 3

up. It seemed to us that they fished almost continuously that first
night. The next morning at breakfast the men asked, with badly con-
cealed grins, whether we had heard anything, but we admitted to noticing
only a few "mouse noises." By the second night we were so hardened to
the din that we slept soundly through all stations, and when we came
ashore ten days later we actually had to accustom ourselves to the quiet.

One of my own objects on this cruise was to observe the operation
of some of the ALBATROSS's new oceanographic instruments, especially a
device for obtaining rapidly a record of ocean temperatures at various
depths, and the echo-sounding equipment which continuously traces the
contours of the ocean floor. The high point of the cruise was "seeing",
with the aid of the echo-sounder, the great undersea canyons that cut
into the outer rim of Georges Bank. It was an extremely dramatic thing
to watch the level ocean floor pass beneath us, then suddenly drop away
in a deep, V-shaped chasm. The origin of these canyons is still one
of the mysteries of the sea; their contours strongly suggest river-cut
land canyons, yet they run down into such great depths that it is hard
to imagine that their slopes have ever been dry land.

We never willingly missed being on deck when the net was brought
up. Especially in the deep-water hauls there were always excitingly
strange and beautiful creatures in addition to the more prosaic cod
and haddock. The deep-water starfish were especially lovely, and some-
times there were heart urchins and such odd beings as sea mice. Scores
of different species of fishes were brought up to give their own mute
testimony as to who lived down in the undersea world of Georges Bank.

To write with understanding about the ocean one need to pay a

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first-hand visit to the undersea world, and with this in mind I did
a little helmet diving, a couple of years ago, on the coral reefs off
the southern coast of Florida. There I learned what the surface of the
water looks like from underneath and how exquisitely delicate and varied
are the colors displayed by the animals of the reef, and I got the feel-
ing of the misty green vistas of a strange, non-human world.

But the backbone of the work for THE SEA AROUND US, as I have already suggested, was just plain hard slogging -- searching in the often dry and exceedingly technical papers of scientists for the kernels of fact to weld into my profile of the sea. I believe I consulted, at a minimum, somewhat more than a thousand separate printed sources. In addition to this, I corresponded with oceanographers all over the world and personally discussed the book with many specialists. A difficult task was transformed into a richly rewarding experience by the generous help and encouragement of leading oceanographers everywhere. Librarians of special collections, both government and private, searched out for me many obscure documents, and dealers in old and rare books located certain old oceanographic volumes that I needed for my working library. The eagerness of all these people to help was really a very heart-warming experience, and I hope they are sharing my pleasure in the generous reception the book has had during the several months since its publication in America.

FROM BOOK PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT

STAPLES PRESS
LIMITED

HEAD OFFICE
MANDEVILLE PLACE
LONDON W1

Welbeck 0665

Private Branch Exchange

Telegrams: Imprimatur, Wesdo, London

NEW YORK

PUBLISHERS

DIRECTORS:
Ronald Staples
Chairman and Managing Director

T. S. Martin, V.I.L.A.

General Manager

Sidney E. Banks

Roy E. Borneman

B. Ifor Evans, M.A., D.LIT.

V. M. Snelling

SECRETARY:
Percy F. Hughes, F.C.I.S., A.S.A.A.

13th September, 1951

Mrs. Marie F. Rodell,
542 fifth Avenue,
New York 19,
N. Y., U. S. A.

Dear Mrs. Rodell,

We have had a very welcome offer
from the Editor of W. H. Smith's Trade
Circular in this country. He is eager
to give a page to Miss Carson, and
suggests a thousand word article on
the stranger aspects of gathering
material for THE SEA AROUND US. He
needs this article by the 28th
September, and we should be most
grateful if you would ask Miss Carson
if she could supply us with copy for
such an article.

If it can be done in a subtle way,
would it be possible to introduce into
this article some comments about the
helpful attitude of booksellers and
librarians to the author's work. You
will understand that this would make
the article most acceptable to the Trade
Circular.

We shall look forward with interest
to receiving copy for this, as we feel
it is a rare opportunity for wide
publicity.

62/41

204 Williamsburg Drive
Silver Spring, Md., U.S.A.

September 23, 1951

Dear Miss Hewson:

Mrs. Rodell has given me your letter of the 13th
asking for a short piece on my experiences in gather-
ing material for THE SEA AROUND US. I hope the enclosed
manuscript will provide what you need and will reach you
in good time.

I am very much pleased with the physical appearance
of your edition of the book, as indicated by the dummy
copy I received several weeks ago. Your promotion plans
also sound interesting. I hope the book will get off to a
good start next month.

Miss Eleanor Hewson
Staples Press
London