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   Scientists and divers, Prager and Earle are well licensed to condense oceanographic knowledge in an overview of the subject that inculcates the integrality of the ocean to geological history. They proceed chronologically through the paleontological divisions of time (Paleozoic, Cenozoic, etc.) before turning to the aspects of today's ocean. They relate how the ocean arrived at its present chemical composition; how its currents and thereby global climate have been affected by the earth's rotation and the positions of drifting continents; and how vital the ocean has been to life's evolutionary epic.