SEAS AND OCEANS
And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea.
—Rev. 16:3
5442 Statistics On Oceans
Oceans cover about 60% of the Northern, and about 80% of the Southern Hemisphere. In all, they occupy about 71% of the total square miles of the earth’s surface. The weight of the water in the ocean is estimated at twelve plus seventeen zeros tons.
If the earth’s surface was uniform—it averages about half a mile high although it rings up to six miles in some places—the sea would cover it two feet deep all over.
5443 Volume Of Evaporation
Every year a layer of the sea fourteen feet thick is taken up into the clouds. The winds bear their burden into the land, and the water comes down in rain upon the fields, to flow back through rivers. Yet we question if this power of God is able to keep us.
5444 Deepest Areas In Oceans
Some of the deepest areas in the world are found in the oceans. These especially deep areas are called trenches. The deepest discovered trench in the Pacific Ocean is the Mariana Trench which is 36,198 feet or almost 7 miles deep! While in the Atlantic Ocean the deepest discovered trench is the Puerto Rico Trench which is 28,734 feet deep.
5445 Population Along Sea Coasts
United Nations (UPI)—Two-thirds of the globe’s population, four billion people, live in coastal areas which amount to only 12 percent of the world’s land mass.
The regions along 280,000 miles (450,616 kilometers) of coastline are overcrowded, containing 66 of the world’s largest cities with populations of more than 1.1 million.
By the year 2,000, an estimated three-fourths of the population of the United States will live along its coasts.
5446 Law Of Sea Conference
The Law of the Sea Conference, which began officially in 1974, involves negotiations, under United Nations auspices, among 150 nations. It’s purpose is to produce a Law of the Sea Treaty, which will provide a legal framework for governance of the oceans.
Noting that the oceans comprise over two-thirds of the earth’s surface, President Carter said their increasing importance has been slow to gain recognition. He cited “the importance of their environmental integrity to our quality of life; their vast potential as a source of minerals, energy and protein; and the essentiality of their freedom of use for the security and well-being of all nations.”
5447 Tribulation And Seas
It must be noted that the earth’s oceans and seas constitute a system like a giant air conditioner, sweeping away the impurities of the air and balancing nature. Moreover, the oxygen-giving phytoplankton which are found in water, supply a majority of the earth’s oxygen to man.
When suddenly in the Tribulation, the oceans and the seas turn to blood (as prophecy says), what happens? (1) Waters become poisonous and putrid, and foul-smelling air sweeps across the world, (2) Fish become unobtainable as a source of food; starvation accelerates around the world, (3) People will rush to dig wells, but blood is also found in springs, and (4) Man’s oxygen supply will diminish.
Tribulation scenerio!
5448 Killer Red Tide
In 1976, Philippine health and fisheries officials were alarmed to see a flow of “killer red tide” along the southern coasts of the islands. This “red” tide kills masses of fish in its movement on the sea as well as poisons them from being edible.
Actually, the “red” tide is a body of microscopic one-celled red protozoans, which are so numerous they color the sea red. There may be about five million of them in a liter of water.
The neighboring Malaysian government has organized “Red Tide Committees” to study this menace threatening to move also near their coast. It is reported that persons eating fish poisoned by the “red tide” suffer stomachache, vomiting, loose bowel movement and itching.
5449 Brazil’s River Of Death
Brazil’s Rio Negro, one of the Amazon’s main tributaries, is truly black. So black, in fact, that light penetrating to a depth of 1 ft. is only one-hundredth as bright; at 6 ft., there is no light at all.
Reason: unlike the Amazon’s clearwater tributaries, the river does not originate primarily in mountains and courses through relatively narrow channels, but flows sluggishly across flatland, jungle, and swamp areas. Each year at flood stage the Rio Negro overflows its banks, while draining some 253,000 sq. mi.—an area almost as vast as Texas.
In the process, its waters dissolve untold quantities of plant juices and tree sap. Scientists have discovered that the Rio Negro’s botanically-infused water may be a simple, untapped and essentially unlimited supply of a new and foolproof insecticide.
—Time
5450 Red Sea’s Name
How did the Red Sea get its name?
Probably from the millions of microscopic algae (seaweed) floating on its surface, which does give a reddish tinge to the water at certain times of the year.
5451 Psychology Of Red
The psychological effect of color on human beings was shown not long ago by the repainting of a black bridge a soothing green which resulted in a tremendous decrease in the number of suicides who jumped from it. In another case, the repainting of telephone booth interiors a stimulating red resulted in faster conversations and the elimination of waiting lines.
Experiments have also revealed that the average person, when shown two identical packages, one wrapped in dark paper and the other in light paper, will almost invariably state that the dark one is the smaller and heavier. Most persons will also underestimate the length of time they have spent in a blue room and overestimate it in a red room.
5452 Imitation Water Never Works
Scientists can make an imitation sea water whose chemical composition is identical with that of natural sea water, but marine life will not develop in it. Yet add only a small percentage of natural sea water to the artificial, and marine life will flourish again. Life is a mystery only because we do not know the first thing about it.
—Holiday
5453 Fishermen’s Prayer
The fishermen of Brittany utter the simple prayer when they launch their boats upon the deep: “Keep me, my God; my boat is small and the ocean is wide.”
5454 Ring Into The Adriatic
A strange custom, but the ruler of Venice on Ascension Day used to throw a ring into the sea to denote that the Adriatic was subject to the Republic of Venice. The symbolism of the ring comes from the wife’s being subjected to her husband.
5455 Columbus’ Bottle
Christopher Columbus tossed a bottle overboard in 1493 while in the Indies that contained a message for Queen Isabella I of Spain. It was found by the captain of an American ship and delivered to Queen Isabella II of Spain 359 years later.
In 1956 a bottle was washed up on the north coast of Jamaica containing a faded message dated 1750. The writer wrote that his ship was on fire and sinking.
5456 Boy’s Unusual Return
Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, reported the strange news of Charles Coughlin’s homecoming. He was a native of the island who in eighteen ninety-five started traveling and a few years later wound up at Galveston, Texas. He died there and was buried.
On September eight, nineteen hundred and one, a terrific West Indian hurricane swept the Gulf of Mexico, and caused that historic calamity of the Southwest known as the Galveston flood. The wind blasted at a terrific velocity of a hundred and thirty-five miles an hour, and swept the raging waters over the city. The churning torrents washed out the cemetery where Charles Coughlin was buried. The water swept away the earth and the coffins, which floated out on the Gulf.
Thirty-four years later, in nineteen thirty-five, a floating coffin drifted ashore at Prince Edward Island. Upon examination, they found a plate with the name of Charles Coughlin, the same man who had left his Prince Edward Island home those long years ago. Wind and current had carried the coffin from the Gulf of Mexico off Galveston for thousands of miles—all the way around into the Atlantic and up the coast to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. An unusual way for a local boy to return home.
—Selected
See also: Pollution, Water ; Water Shortages ; Waves and Tides ; Luke 21:25; Rev. 8:8.