BOOK
REVIEWS
BEHRMAN, D.
1969.
The new world
of the
oceans.
Little, Brown and Co., Boston. 436
p. $8.95.
More than any of the other numerous popularizations of oceanography,
this one succeeds in conveying some sense for the present range, sweep, and
content of the field. In unpretentious
journalistic
prose, with welcome flashes of humor, the author
describes the nature of work being done and problems being explored:
physical, biological, chemical,
geological,
technological.
I was aware of almost
nothing of importance that was not touched upon
in some reasonably illuminating
way.
As the subtitle (Men and oceanography)
hints,
this is achieved by focusing on the work of individuals whose efforts exemplify or document an area
in a particularly
cogent way. Our field abounds
with vivid and forceful
personalities,
and these
come through in Behrman’s writing.
He has a way
of selecting quotations from his interviews,
interspersed with a few lines of characterization
of his
own, that makes the personality
manifest. All this
is done with considerable
economy of words, and
one sees and hears his old friends and acquaintances in these pages very much as he knows them
himself.
The same accuracy comes through in depicting
the atmosphere and flavor of the major laboratories.
Despite similarities
in equipment
and nature of
the research, Scripps, Lamont, and Woods Hole
differ
among each other in many ways-some
obvious, some more subtle. In Behrman’s book the
differences
emerge with remarkable
clarity,
and
they do so from the factual story itself, not from
direct or pedantic assertions.
Behrman is himself a journalist and not a professional scientist.
He has apparently
been very
careful in securing professional
help in checking
his statements about, and presentations of, technical
matters. The level of technical accuracy and soundness is very high. One cannot help detecting, however, the elements of insecurity that lie behind this
position. Little critical faculty has been brought to
bear on the description
of various research endeavors, and, in the very natural “gee whiz” response to vigorous
ideas projected
by vigorous
personalities,
one finds no evaluation of priorities,
no critical assessment that some enterprises may be
deeper or more significant
or “more equal” than
others.
Occasionally
a sentence that has to do with
technical
matters is simply unintelligible.
Some
descriptions of apparatus or techniques (e.g., Nansen bottles, Swallow floats, Sofar, seismic refraction) must be totally incomprehensible
to a reader
who is not already conversant with the concepts.
(A simple diagram here and there could have
helped enormously. ) The fear of physical theory
and mathematics comes through perhaps, a bit more
than necessary. (To some extent this is, of course,
an indictment
of our own inadequacy
in making
such matters intuitively
and qualitatively
accessible
to men of good will like Behrman. )
I do not want to make too much of these few
negative elements. This is a fine book, one of the
very best of its genre, and it should be widely
brought to the attention of laymen and of students,
who would like to know what oceanography
is
about, what oceanographers
do, and what atmosphere they operate in. For the professionals, here
is an engaging way to re-encounter,
through another’s keen eyes and ears, some of the places you
have been and people you have known.
ARNOLD ARONS
Department
of Physics,
University of Washington,
Seattle
981 OS.
BOUMA, A. H. 1969. Methods for the study of
sedimentary
structures.
John Wiley
and
Sons, New York. xvi + 458 p. $19.95.
Anyone who wants to try his hand at studying
sediment structures should first take a few minutes
to consult this book. Although written by a geologist-oceanographer,
the techniques included will
be useful to many others, including biologists working with benthic
organisms.
Drawn
from the
author’s extensive background
in the field, this
handbook gives instructions
on the use of many
different techniques for handling samples for storage or more detailed study. Techniques developed
in the past five or ten years receive the most
extensive treatment;
consequently
many oceanographers and biologists will be dismayed to find
that their favorite
device for sampling sediment
gets either a single sentence or is totally ignored.
This is more than compensated by the extensive
discussion of recent techniques that may well do
the same job better. For example the book discusses several large-volume
box samplers that not
only take large samples but work well in sand
where many corers fail.
Radiography
is a dominant theme of the book.
The technique
has provided
new dimensions to
sediment studies and may be extremely useful for
benthic studies as well. A large section of the book
treats the installation necessary for use aboard ship.
The bibliography
is extensive, seemingly up-todate, and covers a large segment of the European
literature that was unfamiliar
to me. Another useful appendix provides names and mailing addresses
for manufacturers
and suppliers of the equipment
and materials used.
There are the usual complaints about the publisher. The price is too high to permit adoption
of the book as a text. The book would have been
substantially
improved by good editing; the Dutch
966
BOOK REVIEWS
syntax shows unmistakably
and frequently
obscures
the meaning of a sentence. Even minimal editing
should have corrected this.
On balance, it is a good handbook, carefully written; every library should have a copy. Those working directly in the field can save themselves a great
deal of grief by buying a copy to see how a practitioner has solved many of the problems that confront everyone working with sediment structures.
M. GRANT GROSS
Marine Sciences Research Center,
State University
of New York,
Stony Brook
11790.
LEVFUNG, T., H. A. HOPPE, AND 0. J. SC-.
1969. Marine
algae.
A survey of research
and utilization.
Botanica Marina Handbooks,
v. 1. Cram, deGruyter and Co., Hamburg. 421
p. DM140.
For anyone interested in the industrial
uses of
seaweeds, this book, Marine algae. A suruey of
research and utilizatioln,
is to be recommended,
and I think it may prove of interest to phycologists
in general. Please note that it is not entitled simply
Marine alga-e, as one might conclude from a quick
glance at the cover; this would offer promise of a
text that the authors did not intend to fulfill.
Perhaps it would have been better to entitle it
Marine algae. A survey of applied research and
utilization,
since in fact little attention is paid to
other aspects of research, such as morphogenesis,
fine structure, cytology, comparative
biochemistry,
etc. Although
this book is not an exceptionally
good one, I feel sure that it will be useful within
these limitations.
The bulk of the book is a compilation of information on potentially
or actually useful seaweeds. In
160-odd pages, Hoppe reviews 12 genera of green,
55 of brown, and 93 of red algae, in three alphabetical listings, along with odd bits of information
for various species on their form, distribution,
local
names, chemical contents, and uses as foods or
medicines
(with more or less proven or reputed
efficacy).
In the following
86 pages, Hoppe and
Schmid provide a sort of annotated dictionary
of
commercial algal products ( . . . Isingglass, Kanten,
Kausam, Kelp, Kombu . . . ). Finally Schmid adds
some 20 pages on various substances-antibiotics,
lipids, vitamins, etc.-which
could not strictly be
included in the preceding lists. [Incidentally,
his
tabulations
of the inhibitory
effects of seaweed
extracts on Mycobacteria
( p. 36Q-370 ) and of
carbohydrases of certain seaweeds (p. 377) should
have legends bearing an indication
of the source
of information.]
To these sections, Levring has added two chapters which will undoubtedly
be of value to the
industrialist
interested in the sources of his algal
products and in factors which may influence their
supply.
The first chapter
(46 pages) provides
a review of physical factors in the marine littoral
environment
and a survey of the algal ecology of
967
seashores. It is not particularly
up-to-date-three
quarters of the 200~odd references are more than
20 years old-but
it brings together information
not compiled elsewhere.
The second chapter summarizes in some 70 pages the taxonomy
of the
algae, and includes the taxonomic positions of some
124 genera of brown and 204 genera of red algae
-certainly
more than the industrialist
would normally need. This section, too, is somewhat out
of date (I doubt whether any modern phycologist
would relate the Cyanophyceae
to the Bhodophyceae)
and, in places, incorrect
(notably
the
description of the dinokaryon
on p. 70) ; but perhaps these points are of little economic importance.
There are abundant references to the literature
appended to each section of the book, and two
good indexes, one taxonomic
and one general.
Misspellings
of Latin names are relatively
few.
So much, then, for the scope of the book: now,
what of its quality?
The text figures, culled from
standard algal works, exhibit the usual deficiencies
of illustrations
collected in this way. Of the 74
text figures in Levring’s sections, almost none have
scales, so the unfortunate
industrialist
would be
unable to tell from them whether, say, Acrochaetium, Asperococcus, and Agarum are the same size
or not. In a scientific publication
of this sort, I
consider the absence of scales inexcusable.
There
are often no indications as to whether the illustrations represent whole thalli, sections, or even skeletons (e.g., VII Fig. 14). Irrelevant
details have
been carried over (e.g., the development of gonimoblasts in Chondrus,
Fig. 68 ) and some lettered
items on the diagrams are unexplained
in the
legends (e.g., Fig. 44). Some of the illustrations
are from texts more than a century old (e.g., Fig.
75B ) . On the other hand, many of the 42 photographs are original, and some are rather good.
The section by Hoppe is a compilation, prepared,
I suspect, from a huge card index.
There are
abundant references, but the information
has been
uncritically
compiled, old and new, good and bad
observations
being thrown together without
any
apparent attempt to coordinate the useful information and reject the trash. Secondary
and even
tertiary sources are quoted extensively.
Thus, Chapman’s 1950 text on Seaweeds and their 2Ises is
frequently
quoted as the source of information
on
the Japanese names of algae and algal products,
though I am sure Professor Chapman would not
claim to be a Japanese scholar, and must have
obtained his terminology
elsewhere.
The refrain
“Physiological
and biochemical investigations
of . . .
have been reported by Lewin ( 1962)” occurs on
almost every page in this section, although Lewin
did little but compile chapters written
by other
The reader is advised to check the
reviewers.
original
article on critical points; for instance, I
doubt whether fucoidin
is soluble in chloroform,
as indicated on p. 331.
And now we come to the matters of spelling,
syntax, and punctuation.
“Most of the original