The second and more important misconception is that the ocean is a place of sui generis abundance. The nineteenth-century British political commentator Henry Schultes captured this notion in 1813, when he wrote, “In addition to a highly productive soil, the seas which surround us afford an inexhaustible mine of wealth—a harvest, ripe for gathering at every time of the year—without the labour of tillage, without the expense of seed or manure, without the payment of rent or taxes.”
