View images from The Ocean Reader: History, Politics, Culture (Duke U. Press, 2019) among others

The Ocean-born Aphrodite, or Venus, has been the subject of countless canvasses. This version of the goddess of love and beauty comes from an 1890’s engraving of the painting “The Wave and the Pearl” (1862) by Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry (1828-1886).

An eruption of Kīlauea in 1925. The Earl “Dutch” Baldwin Photograph Albums.

1920s postcard of “Customs of Hokkaido Tribe.”

. “The Valley of Voona, Feejee Island,” steel engraving from Captain Charles Wilkes, U.S.N., Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1845).

RPPC, photographer unknown, n.d.

“Groupe de barques à voiles passant la pont” [Group of sailing boats passing the bridge], Cairo, Egypt, c. 1907-1915.

“A Japanese Whaling Boat,” Illustrated London News engraving (19 November 1864)

“Le Lamantin” [The Manatee] and “Le Morse” [The Walrus], copper plate engraving by Bernard Direxit, from the “Histoire Naturelle, Quadrupèdes” section of Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois regnes de la nature, edited by Charles Joseph Panckoucke (Paris: Panckoucke, 1790).

These scenes show the Herring fishery based in Yarmouth, England. Clockwise from upper left, they are “Towing out the boats; Ferrying across with the fish; Signaling to the boats to enter the harbor; Curing the herrings; Ready for packing; Herring-nets on the Denes [Beach at Southwold, 22 miles south of Yarmouth]; Laid up; Packing; [and in the center] Hauling in the Nets. “Our Fishing Industries: The Yarmouth Herring Fishery,” The London Illustrated News (19 May 1883).

These scenes show each step in the process of trawling for sprat, or “spratting.” “Our Fishing Industries: Spratting,” The London Illustrated News (18 August 1883).

In August 1935, the United States Hydrographic Office reprinted the “Whale Chart” that Matthew Fontaine Maury drafted in 1851, depicting the areas of the Ocean where the most whales had been killed.

Photograph by Frances E. Roorda, Stellwagen Bank, 13 July 2014.