Books: Marine Demimonde

THE EDGE OF THE SEA (276 pp.)—Rachel Carson—Houghton Mifflin ($3.95).

Author and Marine Biologist Rachel Carson has moved in from the vasty deeps of The Sea Around Us and made a beachhead on the ground roughly bounded by the rise and fall of the tides—the evolutionary home of man.

Roaming the Eastern U.S. coast from Maine to Key West, Author Carson covers the marginal world of the seashore with more than a specialist’s curiosity. She evokes that sense of private peace and mystical wonder that Anne Lindbergh brought to her Gift from the Sea. She explores and celebrates a world of ferment and vitality, from the humble mole crab to the dog-whelk snail, from submarine forests to rock pools.

Lashed by the surf, lacerated by shore ice, alternately drenched and desiccated, the tiny inhabitants of the marine demimonde learn to live dangerously and adapt to the challenges of intertidal life. From a thousand examples, Author Carson evokes all the moods of the edge of the sea and of its inhabitants—strange, ugly, beautiful, bizarre. Nature’s grace, order and mystery flow through her book like an underwater ballet. Again Author Carson has shown her remarkable talent for catching the life breath of science on the still glass of poetry.