File:The continent we live on (1961) (20691737401).jpg

Title: The continent we live on
Identifier: continentweliveo00sandrich (find matches)
Year: 1961 (1960s)
Authors: Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973
Subjects: Physical geography; Natural history
Publisher: New York : Random House
Contributing Library: New College of California
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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a keeper's hand, and they are trained to do this: the Spotted Dolphins, however, had to be prevented from doing so because they were so quick and jumped so much farther thai they started leaping right out of the tank THE RETURN OF THE GIANTS There is another huge sea beast that once lived in enormous numbers around islands both in the far southern parts of the southern hemisphere and on the islands off this coast. It too appeared to have been exterminated at the end of the last cen- tury, but it also has comparatively recently reappeared rather mysteriously from nobody knows exactly where. This is the mighty Sea Elephant or, alternatively. Elephant Seal (Miroungaj. The males may measure eighteen feet and have a fifteen-foot girth; they are equipped with an eighteen-inch trunk whidi normally flops down over the muzzle but which, being connected with the nasal passages within, can be inflated and raised almost upright. When alarmed or mating, the bulls rear the forepart of their bodies vertically, raise this trunk, and give rise to tremen- dous bellows and roars. They feed on a combination of fish, cuttlefish, and seaweed, and they are quite mobile if not agile when in the sea, but they spend a lot of time on land sleeping and snoring loudly, after lumbering laboriously out of the water The males maintain harems, and once a year these creatures indulge a remarkable habit. They are normally clothed in short, sparse, grayish brown hair, and like other mammals they go through regular molts; but instead of just shedding their hair piecemeal as the next season's growth comes in. they shed the whole outer layer of their skins. As a result, they present a quite revolting sight, being bright pink and naked and looking as if they had been skinned alive and parboiled, a fantasy augmented by their endless moaning, belching, and snoring. These vast corpulent mammals have now made a fine come- back and have large colonies on the Guadalupe, San Benito, and Cedros Islands off the coast of Baja California, and they have even appeared on the islands off the coast of this province. The Southern Sea Lion also occurs along this coast, and there are now also once again a few of the small Southern Fur Seal or Sea Bear. HONORABLE ANCESTORS Each time we have touched on the Pacific coast, we have had occasion to mention kelp hcds^ Though most people have heard of these beds, and although we are taught that kelp is a seaweed, very few of us realize the significance and uniqueness of this phenomenon. There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world. To explain, it is an almost continuous strip or bell of seaweed stretching for thousands of miles, a little offshore, from Alaska to Baja California and, in isolated patches, a bit farther in both directions. It is a result of the combination of a narrow conti- nental shelf and a cool current cutting south through a warm ocean, and nowhere is this more prominent than off the coast of this province. Under bright sunlight, stretching to the horizon up and down that coast, and when the ocean is so calm it

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