Moving the Waters - Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets - page 108

imported Chinese labourers had to shift 100 barrow-loads a day, and
those too weak to continue had to work on their knees to pick stones
out from the guano. Small wonder that guards had to be posted, to
stop them from leaping into the sea to their death to escape this hell
on Earth.
The booming fish populations are not constant, though. In El Niño
years the dynamics of the Pacific Ocean change, the winds slacken,
and the supply of nutrients from the deep diminishes. The fish popu-
lations crash, and so do those of all the creatures dependent on them,
the larger fish and seabirds. The human fishers of anchovy and sar-
dine go through lean times too—and the effects reverberate through
the world in altered weather patterns that can cause droughts in
Africa and floods in California and in the Atacama Desert. It is a
reminder of how sensitive the world is to minor fluctuations in the
behaviour of the oceans.
However, there are steadier and more reliable motive forces to the
movement of the waters of the seas. These too, though, have
excited awe and terror in human hearts. Their power comes from the
heavens.
Moon Madness
The poets and philosophers of ancient Greece had no means of grasp-
ing the nature of ocean circulation, or even of knowing that the waters
truly did circulate. But they could appreciate the surface drama of the
oceans. From that, they manufactured an image that then fed into
human fears for two millennia and more. Homer wrote of Odysseus's
year-long sojourn on the island of Aeaea, and of his relations—part
opponent, part lover—with its local sorceress, Circe. Odysseus
escaped by steering between the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis,
monsters that inhabited—or personified—a high cliff and a whirl-
pool respectively.