For countless voyages I have hung over the bow of passenger
steamers in mid-ocean, making of myself a
figurehead of sorts, straining my eyes downwards to watch
the living creatures which whirled into sight and swept
past. Dolphins, flyingfish, tunny, an occasional shark
these are familiar to all who have ever glanced over the
bow. But the rays of the slanting sun striking obliquely
into the smooth surface often revealed a myriad, myriad
motes more like aquatic dust than individual organisms,
which filled the water from the very surface to as deep as
the eye could penetrate.
from The Arcturus Adventure by William Beebe (1877 1962)
