It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray. All this has been r… - Rachel Carson

The sediments are a sort of epic poem of the earth.

Although man's record as a steward of the natural resources of the earth has been a discouraging one, there has long been a certain comfort in the belief that the sea, at least, was inviolate, beyond man's ability to change and to despoil. But this belief, unfortunately, has proved to be naive. In unlocking the secrets of the atom, modern man has found himself confronted with a frightening problem-what to do with the most dangerous materials that have ever existed in all the earth's history, the by-products of atomic fission. The stark problem that faces him is whether he can dispose of these lethal substances without rendering the earth uninhabitable. No account of the sea today is complete unless it takes note of this ominous problem. By its very vastness and its seeming remoteness, the sea has invited the attention of those who have the problem of disposal, and with very little discussion and almost no public notice, at least until the late 'fifties, the sea has been selected as a "natural" burying place for the contaminated rubbish and other "low-level wastes" of the Atomic Age.

It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.