to name a few-are either vanished or consolidated into other municipalities. In one volume, Shometce could not detail the histories of all the "lost" towns of the tidewater. Instead, he has chosen ten of the more notable, including some still extant today, and through exhaustive research combined with his own personal exploration of the sites, provides the reader with a detailed look into the genesis of each town and how it fared. Unfortunately, Shomette's effort is diminished by poor editing; there is simply too much information that has little bearing on the story he tells. This abundance of facts can be overwhelming and creates nonseq uitors and fragmented bits of a story where the reader-at least this readerwould like to have learned more. However, for a researcher, or an aficionado of Maryland histo1y or of the events that took place during the early days of settlement, and even into modern times, this volume will answer nicely. WILLIAM H. WHITE
An Ocean in Common: American Naval Officers, Scientists, and the Ocean Environment, by Dr. Gary E. Weir (Texas A&M Press, College Station TX, 2001, 420pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 158544-114-7; $44.95hc) In An Ocean in Common Gary Weir, head of the Contemporary History Branch of the Naval Historical Center, details the contributions of oceanographers or" ocean scientists" during the early Cold War, citing such accomplishments as the creation of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), the measurement of gravitational fields affecting ballistic missile trajectories, Arctic exploration, and a dive to the ocean's deepest depths. The book opens up the hushhush relationship between oceanography and the navy bureaucracy, combining a wealth of materials from nineteen archives as well as interviews into a precise narrative covering five crucial decades. Few fields in science have flourished from the largesse of a military benefactor as has oceanography. By the mid-1950s, the US Navy underwrote between 80 and 90 percent of all oceanographic research being conducted by institutions such as Woods Hole and Scripps and various universities. However, the navy's generosity had been earned. What makes this an important, but
SEA HISTORY 100, SPRING 2002
unfortunately at times a tedious read, is Weir's exposition of an evolving relationship between the civilian science and professional navy communities. The two communities first broke bread at the onset of World War I and the German U-Boat menace. Ties were maintained after the Allied victory in an era oflimited resources. Between the wars, several productive partnerships built a dialogue between them. World War II consummated the courtship as scientists and naval personnel joined to meet the threat of the German U-boats. An understanding of thermal layering enabled more efficient use of sonar and, perhaps more significantly, showed American submarine skippers how to avoid detection by Japanese pursuers. Navy leaders kept the funding spigots open during the postwar period in anticipation of an agile Soviet submarine fleet, leading to the exploitation of the discovery of a deep sound channel that enabled hydrophones to pick up noise from sources thousands of miles away, the installation ofSOSUS and other undersea advances. An alphabet soup of abbreviations and acronyms hinders Weir's presentation; the lack of supporting materials such as a glossa1y, diagrams or a chronology and a poor index do not help. Still, Weir has taken us to new ocean depths. As a history on oceanography, this book is path-breaking. DAVID F. WINKLER, PHD Naval Historical Foundation Washington DC Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers, by David Wright and David Zoby (Scribner, New York NY, 2001, 335pp, biblio, notes, sources, index, ISBN 0-684-87304-4; $26hc) The US Life-Saving Service (USLSS), one of the predecessors of the US Coast Guard (USCG), is little known today. Even less known is the service's Pea Island Station, North Carolina, commanded and crewed by African Americans. The authors focus on the life of the first person in charge of the station and devote only 97 pages to the life of the station's crew. The authors state: "for narrative drive, we occasionally took small liberties with the available records, although, as a practice, we avoided it." They add that in other portions of the book "we allowed our imagi-
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