02 December 2012

Size of the ocean

Many girls and boys who read this book have seen the ocean. 

Sunset Gowanus bay etching by Henry Farrer (1880)


But others may not know how it looks.  

Looking Through Periscope by Eric Ravilious (1941)


If you have not seen it, find out how you would have have to travel to reach it and how far away it is.

Compass quilt by Barbara Ann McCraw


If a lake stretches away till it seems to touch the sky, it looks very much like the ocean.

Lake Erie # 11 photograph by Jennifer Squires


When we see the ocean for the first time, we wonder where all the water came from, and yet we see a very small part of it.

Geometria - Vestigare geometriae intervalla by Cornelis Cort (1565)


It is so large that ships may sail on it for days and days without seeking land.

Sea Bird Forms by John Wells (1951)


The surface of the ocean is about two and a half times as large as that of all the dry land.

Ocean painting # 4 by David Long


But there is land under the water.

Rainbow World by Bern Sundell


The story of the Eskimo told us that the sea north of us is icy cold.

photo of an iceberg by David Burdeny


The coral islands are in a warm part of the sea that lies far southwest of where we live.

Coral in Bloom on Carless Reef


Excerpts from the chapter called Size of the Ocean from the book New Geography by Alexis Everett Frye (1925) adapted for Canada by I. Gammell, rector of the High School Montreal


New Geography is one of the books in my friend Anna's studio.




Chemist: The Art of Measurement Hdr photography by Mike Savad


High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or HDR) is a set of methods used in imaging and photography to allow a greater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging methods or photographic methods. HDR images can represent more accurately the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, from direct sunlight to faint starlight, and is often captured by way of a plurality of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter.