This volume, which explores the role that the seas play in our lives, is the companion to a travelling exhibition on ocean conservation at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, held in 1995. Writers, ocean scientists, conservationists, sailors, and fishermen speak about their connections with the oceans. Rachel Carson celebrates the power of the seas; Ann Davison, the first woman to sail alone across the Atlantic, reflects on self-sufficiency; novelist Peter Matthiesson tells of the hard lives of fishermen; John McPhee evokes the dangers of the open sea; naturalist William Beebe descends into the Atlantic in 1934 in a small steel sphere and reports on what he sees; Jacques-Yves Cousteau takes the first dive with the newly invented Aqualung. The book emphasizes the importance of conservation, and aims to change the way readers think about the sea.