Of Words and Water Literature and the Bay (On Literature and The

Home , Chesapeake (novel), Gilbert Klingel, John Barth, The End of the Road

Research, Education, Outreach July-August 1998

or centuries the Chesapeake has SPOTLIGHT ON LANGUAGE inspired those who have settled F on its shores. Native Americans of the Algonquian nation poetically Of Words and Water called it “Chesepiooc,” meaning “Great Shellfish Bay” or, according to some, “Mother of Waters.” Early Spanish explorers named it “Madre Literature and the Bay de Dios,” the Bay of the Mother of God. Beginning in 1607, the estab- BY JACK GREER lishment of large, English-speaking colonies brought a rich heritage of written language to the New World and to the Bay region, a tradition “Wonder lies in the bay and that continues to the present. From the effusions of Captain its watershed in full measure. John Smith to the gripping narrative It is nothing alien or mystical, of escaped slave Frederick Douglass to the contemporary ironies of John or reserved for the expert.” Barth and the lyrical descriptions of William Warner, the Chesapeake has — Tom Horton inspired powerful writing in both fiction and nonfiction. Writers have Bay Country drawn on the Bay for physical setting, dialogue and character, and in so doing have created a literature that deepens our understanding of cultures that have themselves been shaped by their relationship to this special place.

The News Literature Brings Literature is language that, as William Faulkner says, “lives.” It is news that stays news. But exactly what news does literature try to give us? How does it differ from other news — the news of science, for example, or the news of environmen- talism or history? To paraphrase the Roman poet Horace, “The purpose of literature is to delight and to teach.” It is not enough to “teach” (as would, say, history or science); or to “delight” (as would, say, some forms of popular culture) — literature does both at once. And, one might add, it must Please turn page M.E. Warren

A Maryland Sea Grant Publication Literature, continued accomplish this in a way that gives “He wonders if . . . something back to our culture, some- he’s ever asked himself, what it’s for, living here on this thing we would be poorer for not land just barely afloat on fragile banks of clay and sand.” having. To say this in another way, a work of literature takes its substance — Christopher Tilghman and meaning from the culture from In a Father’s Place which it derives, but it also helps to shape our understanding, and our culture, in new and lasting ways. In his book The Modes of Modern Writing, novelist and literary critic David Lodge argues that literature involves the creative use of selection (of language) and combination (of language). Easy to say. Hard to do. Lodge posits that all writing, from en- cyclopedias to novels, involves this process of selection and combination, though he reserves the term “literature” for creative language (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) that employs lin- chives guistic devices to take the reader beyond the purely literal to more complicated mental capacities. In contrast to rhetorical argument, for example, which may aim to clarify through re- Maryland State Ar duction, literature often aims to en- vate psychologies, nor does it aim to. to the action, is J.R. Salamanca, au- lighten through amplification and One might say that Michener’s ap- thor of several novels written during evocation. proach, a very appealing one, is “top- the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Lilith, though In literature, in the words of nov- down”: he begins with a framework set in rural Maryland and not in a elist Henry James, “There are depths.” of events and ideas and uses charac- Bayside community, is perhaps Sala- In what ways have Bay writings ters to bring them to life. manca’s best known novel, popular accommodated these richer, more Other Bay writers compose their enough to have been made into a complicated literary forms? Has the stories from the bottom up, starting feature film. In other novels, Salaman- Chesapeake, among the shallowest of with more realistic characters and set- ca focuses on the Chesapeake Bay — estuaries, inspired writers to give us tings — sometimes drawn from per- in Embarkation, for example, he dra- the “depths” James refers to? sonal experience — and building the matizes the life of a boat builder and narrative on them. In such writings as his family in Solomons Island, Mary- The Bay As Setting The Lord’s Oyster, for example, East- land. Unlike the novels of Michener Of all the recent fictional works ern Shore author Gilbert Byron re- or even Gilbert Byron, Salamanca about the Bay, James Michener’s lates stories steeped in firsthand ex- tells his stories from the “inside,” Chesapeake may well be the most periences of growing up and living through characters whose actions res- widely read. Michener has done for by the Bay. Here one can “see” the onate with significance. the Bay what he has done for Hawaii, boats, the towns, the people of the Embarkation’s boat builder, Joel Texas and Alaska. He has taken on a Chesapeake as they once were, and Linthicum, is a husband and father place and described it in detail from many students of the Bay have, un- who will stop at nothing to pursue its beginnings in geologic time derstandably, a strong affection for his heart’s dream — building beauti- through the course of natural and hu- Byron’s intensely regional work. By- ful yachts — even if it means driving man history. The story of unfolding ron’s writing has charm — though it his family to ruin. Like a possessed generations is set within that context does not create or evoke complex artist, he cannot help himself. Sala- — and Michener paints a vivid pic- symbolic or archetypal design, nor manca evokes this “artist’s studio” ture. If one wants to learn about the does it reach deeper levels of psycho- when the son, returning home after region, Chesapeake is a place to start. logical complexity. many years because of the drowning But the Jamesian depths are not here: One novelist who evokes the re- death of his father, enters the Bayside Michener’s broad canvas dwells on gion by probing characters for whom boatyard: society — it does not penetrate pri- the Chesapeake, as place, is integral

2 • MARYLAND MARINE NOTES I opened the door and went in and dle. Here Nature shows a dark side; Barth’s focus is not on the physical switched on the light and stood the descriptions of the Bay, of boat Bay, but rather on the process of fic- there once again embraced as if by building, not only reveal a close con- tion-making itself. In some ways like my father’s arms in the reek of nection with the real world, with a another Bay-area writer, Edgar Allen clean redwood and pitch and Chesapeake that we all recognize, but Poe, Barth sets his works in the land- hemp and oakum, shellac and cre- osote, the litter of sawdust and ten- there is — as Joseph Conrad writes of scape of the imagination, though we drils of shaved mahogany, tarry literature — “something more.” That can easily recognize at the same time buckets and casting ladles and lad- something more has to do with the the marshy terrain of the Chesapeake. ders and sawhorses and jumbled human condition. Unlike Poe, Barth is very conscious paint lockers and drill benches and Sadly, Embarkation, and all of of his Chesapeake connections. In lumber racks of fragrant teak and Salamanca’s books, are out of print. such essays as “Historical Fiction, Fic- spruce and afromosia and white titious History, and Chesapeake Bay pine, and beyond, in the shadowy Barth and the Bay Blue Crabs, or About Aboutness” (in vault of the shop, tall and royal as Perhaps no novelist has worked a collection entitled The Friday Book) a harp, the skeleton of a ship that and “Goose Art or, the Aesthetic Ecol- he was building. the Bay into fiction more inventively than the Cambridge, Maryland-born ogy of Chesapeake Bay” (in Further Fridays), Barth explores the relation- Salamanca seeks out and follows writer, John Barth. Barth began his lit- ship between “Bay” writing and “liter- the lyrical structures of the language. erary career at the age of twenty-four, ary” writing (which must finally quali- Beyond this, he draws on the power when he wrote The Floating Opera fy as “art,” regardless of its subject). of the Bay itself as symbolic force in (1956), followed quickly by The End Speaking of Bay literature in his the narrative. In a key description of of the Road (1958). In 1960 he pub- essay “Goose Art,” Barth notes that a squall rising on the Bay, Salamanca lished The Sot Weed Factor, a ram- while “a rising tide floats all boats,” it joins a sailor’s eye for nautical detail bling eighteenth century-style histori- also floats all kinds of other stuff, in- with the charged threat not only of cal novel set in colonial Maryland that cluding “garbage, untreated sewage the storm but of the father’s obses- rivals Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones for and suchlike. . ..” He reminds us that sion, which threatens to destroy the expansive satire and libido. the most important consideration for family. In a powerful turning point, But while books like The Floating Bay literature, as for all literature, re- one reckless moment places the Opera (and, much later, Sabbatical mains quality. And when it comes to builder’s young son in the destructive and The Tidewater Tales) draw on quality Barth gives a critical nod to path of a wildly spinning winch han- the Bay for their concrete moorings,

“I recommend three Maryland beaten biscuits, with water, for your breakfast. They are hard as a haul-seiner’s conscience and dry as a dredger’s tongue, and they sit for hours in your morning stomach like ballast on a tender ship’s keel.” — John Barth The Floating Opera own Skip Br

JULY-AUGUST 1998 • 3 continued Literature, “Enough superlatives. They mislead. The Chesapeake one contemporary writer, Christopher does not impress those who know it best as the Tilghman, who, like Barth, grew up grandest or most of anything. For all its size and on the Eastern Shore and learned to create fiction from its marshy setting gross statistics, it is an intimate place where land and its murky past. and water intertwine in infinite varieties of mood You Can’t Kill a Waterman and pattern.” Tilghman is captivated by the — William Warner Bay’s complex history, and often Beautiful Swimmers writes about long-standing families that have struggled to keep their dig- nity (and their property) on the East- ern Shore. Such is the central story of his novel, Mason’s Retreat (1996), set on the Chester River just before World War II. The main characters are American, but they have lived in Eng- land for a number of years and have returned to the aging “Retreat” only because the Depression has left them nearly penniless. Mason’s Retreat is not necessarily representative of Tilghman’s best work. The stories of his collection In a Father’s Place have a much finer own edge — they give voice to his sense of the water and its influence on character. Consider this, from “Nor- Skip Br folk, 1969,” a story about the painful identity of the murderer — his father. other respect, this Maryland journalist and confusing 1960s: “What remained Tilghman captures the Chesapeake is a poet.” Which brings to mind of [his wife] Julie, and Norfolk, and setting, the watermen who come to- David Lodge’s argument that “litera- the sixties, was the sea, boundless gether (“ain’t no one gonna kill a wa- ture” is not limited to poetry and fic- and inexhaustible, the mystery and terman”) to confront the murderer, tion, but that nonfiction can have the source.” Or this, from the title sto- the psychological struggle of the evocative, even symbolic, power as ry, “In a Father’s Place”: small boy, and the waters of the Bay well. itself, as they finally close over the Horton’s Bay Country is one such This was the soul of the Chesa- body. instance of that power. Another is peake country, never far from land In these stories Tilghman brings us William Warner’s Beautiful Swimmers. on the water, the water always closer to the heart of darkness, and of Each takes the reader close to the meeting the land, in flux. You light, and closer to the mystery and heart of the Bay, its creatures and its could run from one to the other. . . the magic of the water. water-men and water-women (not all until one morning he had awak- ened and listened to the songs of whom work the water). Horton’s from the water and realized that he The Water’s Magic book won the John Burroughs Medal. was free. In the words of Tom Horton, the Warner’s won the Pulitzer Prize. Both Chesapeake’s waters are “ensorcel- books are compelling because they While In a Father’s Place contains ling.” It is a great word, derived from capture what so many who live in the pieces set in the American West, “sorcery” — there is, quite simply, region value in the dancing backwa- readers will find Maryland’s Eastern magic, as Horton says in Bay Country, ters of countless rivers, coves and Shore in several stories, including the “wherever land and water mingle se- creeks. And then there is the “some- opening one, “On the Rivershore.” ductively in the marshy skirts of the thing more,” the deep pleasure of Here Tilghman describes how, inad- Atlantic coastal plain. . . .” lively prose. vertently, a young boy witnesses the The Los Angeles Times reviewer of While Warner and Horton focus murder of a waterman in the tall Bay Country wrote of Horton that his on the Bay, they continue a branch reeds along the Chester River. The is a “clean, sinewy prose that goes on of American writing that may have boy knows the waterman who has holiday every few pages and cuts var- begun with Thoreau but which has been shot dead, and he knows the ious beribboned capers. But in every evolved through such nature writers

4 • MARYLAND MARINE NOTES as Aldo Leopold and Wallace Stegner. Horton, as a reporter, is also heir to those who, like Tom Wolfe, helped create New Journalism, where tech- Selected Bibliography: niques of fiction and memoir are brought to bear on the reporting of factual information. Chesapeake Bay Literature One might say, in fact, that two features rise from the Bay’s literary landscape: the writings of naturalists and historians, including those who have lived and died by the Bay; and the works of novelists, poets and short story writers. To the first group belong Gilbert Klingel (The Bay), Anne Hughes Jander (Crab’s Hole: A Family Story of Tangier Island) and Sandy Rodgers others who have recorded first-hand Fiction Bay experiences. To the second group belong the literary virtuosos, Barth, John. The Floating Opera. (Appleton, Century Crofts, Inc., 1956.) Republished such as Barth and Tilghman. by Doubleday, 1967. Interestingly, it is at the intersec- The End of the Road. Doubleday, 1958. Reissued with The Floating Opera, 1967. tion of these two modes of writing — where naturalist nonfiction overlaps The Sot Weed Factor. Grosset & Dunlap, 1960. with more literary forms (forms that Tidewater Tales. G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1987. use dialogue and character, evoking a powerful sense of place) — that the Sabbatical. (Putnam, 1982.) Republished by Penguin, 1983. Chesapeake may have its most dis- Byron, Gilbert. The Lord’s Oyster. (Tradition Press, 1967.) Republished by The Johns tinct influence on language. In the Hopkins University Press, 1985. writings of Warner and Horton the Salamanca, Jack. Embarkation. Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. Bay inspires keen observation of ecology on the one hand and human Tilghman, Christopher. In a Father’s Place. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1990. nature on the other. By joining vivid Mason’s Retreat. Random House, 1996. depictions of those who live and work by the Bay — especially water- Nonfiction men but also others who belong to this region — with a deep apprecia- Warner, William. Beautiful Swimmers. (Little, Brown & Company, 1976.) Republished tion of the estuary’s natural wonder, by Penguin, 1977. these writers have increased our un- Horton, Tom. Bay Country. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. derstanding not only of the Bay but of our culture and perhaps of litera- An Island out of Time. W.W. Norton & Co., 1996. ture itself. Horton, Tom and William Eichbaum. Turning the Tide. Island Press, 1991. There are, of course, many other Bay area writers who deserve men- Essays on Literature and the Bay tion — both writers of fiction like William Styron (Virginia) and Anne Barth, John. The Friday Book (1984), reprinted by The Johns Hopkins University Tyler (Maryland), and of nonfiction, Press, 1997, and Further Fridays, Little, Brown & Co., 1996. Collected essays; see like Frederick Douglass — and, un- especially “About Aboutness” and “Goose Art.” doubtedly, we will soon hear from Geiger, Virginia. Maryland Our Maryland. N.Y.: University Press of America, Lan- others. As the twentieth century ham, 1987. (Contains talks by Tom Horton and John Barth.) draws to a close, Bay writers of both fiction and nonfiction are showing us Harwood, Richard. Talking Tidewater. Literary House Press, Washington College. how far we have come in valuing the Shivers, Frank B., Jr. Maryland Wits and Baltimore Bards: A Literary History. Balti- ecological world that sustains us. more and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. When our descendants look back to trace this evolution in our thinking, NOTE: This list does not contain any children’s, or special interest books (on history, the living details will be there for lighthouses, duck hunting, skipjacks, etc.). For a more comprehensive list of these them to find in our literature. and other Bay publications, write to Tidewater Publishers, Cornell Maritime Press, P.O. Box 456, Centreville, Maryland 21617.

JULY-AUGUST 1998 • 5 Literature and the Role of Words BY JACK GREER

he greatest enterprise of the human ings of the healthy mind. Hillman describes mind,” says E.O. Wilson, “has been the nonlinear ways that the human brain Mystery “T and always will be the attempt to Spirituality employs to “solve” problems, and points link the sciences and the humanities.” to the importance of myth not only to Wilson makes this statement in a new Painting Mathematics ancient peoples but to modern writers, book entitled Consilience: The Unity of Physics philosophers and psychologists. Knowledge. He argues that most of the “Freud, it should be remembered, problems that face society — environ- Music THE Chemistry did not win the Nobel Prize for medi- mental problems, for example — lie at BAY cine, but rather the Goethe Prize for the bulls-eye of a matrix of disciplines. Biology literature,” Hillman notes. Radiating outward from its center are the Literature Economics Language and Water biological sciences, the social sciences, Ethics environmental policy, ethics, while the When considering a body of water

problems themselves, the challenges to our Sociology like the Chesapeake Bay, with an eye to- national and international human communities, ward deep understanding, it becomes clear lie most often right at the center, where that more than one discipline pertains. all disciplines converge. THE SYMBOLIC WHEEL. All disciplines Physical hydrology explains the Bay’s “As we cross the circles inward to- use symbolic constructs, whether words, elaborate two-layer estuarine circulation ward the point at which the quadrants mathematical formulas, or musical pattern. Chemistry can explain how the meet, we find ourselves in an increasing- notation, to create meaning and rela- Bay’s complex mixture of sodium inter- tion to the concrete world, in this case acts with a range of metals and with ly unstable and disorienting region,” Wil- the Chesapeake Bay. son says. “The ring closest to the inter- nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. section, where most real-world problems exist, is the one Once we understand the physical and chemical sub- in which fundamental analysis is most needed. Yet virtually structure of the Bay, we can better explain its biology, first no maps exist; few concepts and words serve to guide us.” in terms of individual species, and then ultimately as an in- As Wilson points out, we need concepts, we need tegrated, interdependent ecosystem. words. To achieve bridging concepts that can pass through But will those levels of understanding explain why, rigid disciplinary boundaries, he suggests the concept of when standing at the end of a long low point of land, we “consilience.” He borrows the word from William stare at the red sunset with such interest and longing? Can Whewell’s The Philosophy of Inductive Sciences (1840); it physics explain our response to the deep purples and vio- means, he says, literally a “jumping together” of knowl- lets that dance across the surface of the waves? What ex- edge. Wilson prefers the word to “coherence,” or other plains not only the sizes and shapes of the waves them- more common words, which are likely to suggest a wider selves but the way we feel upon looking at them? variety of meanings. This is the task set before the writer, to bring all these In his matrix of knowledge, Wilson draws lines be- facets of the mind to bear. Consider this excerpt from a re- tween “imagination” and the “real world” to emphasize the cent article by Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker importance of their connection. Scientists have long ac- Creek: knowledged the role of imaginative thought in the scientif- “All my life, I have loved this sight: a standing wave in a ic process — not only were specific inventions such as the boat’s wake, shaped like a thorn. I have seen it rise from submarine first dreamed up, long before they became a re- many oceans, and I saw it rise from the Sea of Galilee. . . . ality, by imaginative thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci and What I saw was the constant intersection of two wave sys- Jules Verne, but mathematicians and physicists have also tems. Lord Kelvin first described them. Transverse waves attested to the value of free-wheeling, spontaneous break- rise abaft the stern and stream away perpendicular to the throughs from the less-than-fully-conscious mind. A fa- boat’s direction of travel. Diverging waves course out in a mous example involves the mathematician Poincaré, who, V shape behind the boat. Where the waves converge, two upon stepping down from a bus suddenly visualized the lines of standing crests persist at an unchanging angle to solution to a difficult problem. He conceived of the solu- the direction of the boat’s motion. We think of these as the tion not at his desk with pencil in hand, but while walking boat’s wake. I was studying the highest standing wave, the about, perhaps because of some unforeseen trigger in dai- one nearest the boat. It rose from the trough behind the stern and spilled foam. The curled wave crested over clear ly life. And one thinks, of course, of the apocryphal story water and tumbled down. All its bubbles broke, thousands of Newton and the apple. a second, unendingly. I could watch the present; I could Contemporary thinkers like James Hillman have written see time and how it works” (“The Wreck of Time,” Harp- eloquently about the role of the imagination in the work- er’s Magazine, January 1998).

6 • MARYLAND MARINE NOTES Dillard’s fascination with a boat’s wake is hydrodynamic and physical, End Notes it is aesthetic (“shaped like a thorn”), it is spiritual. In fact by the end of the paragraph, when she states, “I Publications Sea Nettle Stings could see time and how it works,” we have linked the concrete physical ■ Striped Bass Research. On ■ Reader Says Papaya with the metaphysical. June 6 and 7 the University of Mary- Remedy Works Best. The joining of science and the hu- land Agricultural Experiment Station After seeing an article manities is, as philosopher Ernst Cas- and Maryland Sea Grant co-hosted — on jellyfish, or sea net- sirer said, a joining of symbolic struc- together with the Striped Bass Grow- tles, in a back issue of tures. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, ers Association, the Maryland Aqua- Marine Notes on the web poetry, music — all our separate dis- culture Association and the North- (http://www. mdsg.umd.edu ciplines are complex symbolic con- eastern Regional Aquaculture Center /MDSG/Communications/MarineNotes structs, ways of trying to understand — a two-day national conference on /Jul-Aug94/index.html), one of our and manipulate the world, or to ex- the current research and production readers e-mailed us a suggestion for press it. The mathematician employs a activities associated with striped bass treating their stings. Roger Jackson of numerical system; the composer uses and its hybrids. Scotland, Maryland, an avid wind musical notation. The chemist em- More than 120 people registered surfer in the nettle-filled Chesapeake ploys representative formulae; the for the conference that included pre- Bay and the waters off North Caroli- poet uses phonemes built from a fi- sentations on research activities by na’s barrier islands, discovered a new nite alphabet, what we call “words.” some of the best striped bass and hy- remedy he swears by. Cassirer describes these almost in- brid researchers from around the He was using meat tenderizer to conceivably complex symbolic con- country in such disciplines as genet- relieve the pain and swelling of net- structs in his major work, The Philos- ics, growth, reproduction, nutrition, tle stings, when he noticed that pa- ophy of Symbolic Forms. Fortunately production, and disease. pain was listed as the active ingredi- for the average reader, he explains A 36-page collection of presenta- ent. He decided to see if he could lo- the role of the humanities in a much tion summaries titled Striper 2000: cate the substance. Defined in the shorter, more accessible book, The Striped Bass and Its Hybrids — A Pro- dictionary as “an enzyme capable of Logic of the Humanities. gram Summary was produced for the digesting protein, obtained from the Expanding on E.O. Wilson’s dia- conference. To obtain a copy of the unripe fruit of the papaya,” papain gram, and with Ernst Cassirer in mind, booklet, contact Maryland Sea Grant, was available in health food stores in we could describe what could be by phone (301) 405-6376, or e-mail, green papaya powder. He found that, called the “symbolic wheel” as we try [email protected]. when mixed into a paste with water, to bring all our faculties to bear on a the powder worked much better than body of water like the Chesapeake the meat tenderizer, eliminating the Bay. At the center, as with Wilson’s Call for Papers irritation caused by the sting within diagram, lies the “real world,” in this minutes. case, the Bay, and radiating out from ■ Rethinking After finding fresh papaya at the it are all our many disciplines — Tourism, April 25-29, supermarket, he decided to see if it physics, chemistry, biology, econom- 1999. The World Con- was also effective. He carried one to ics, psychology, anthropology, litera- gress on Coastal and the beach with him and the next ture, music, sculpture, myth, religion Marine Tourism, to be time he got stung, cut off a slice of — and next to them, mystery, that held April 25-29, 1999 in papaya and applied it to the injury — part of understanding that will, as Al- Vancouver, British Co- he says that it relieved the pain in- bert Einstein once reminded us, al- lumbia, will focus on “Rethinking stantly. “When smushed into a paste ways lie beyond our ken, no matter Tourism: Choices, Responsibilities and and applied to the affected skin area, how much we learn. Practices.” The intent of the meeting fresh papaya provides the most dra- The sciences and the humanities will be to facilitate constructive dia- matic ‘cure’ I’ve witnessed,” says will always work in concert, and to log on a variety of topics related to Jackson. “Even more dramatic is the understand the link will, as Wilson tourism, society and the environment. rapid disappearance of any welts as- says, be the greatest enterprise of the Congress organizers are currently sociated with sea nettle exposure.” human mind. Working side by side seeking abstracts for papers to be de- He has since used the papaya cure with scientists, those whose main livered at the conference. For details himself and shared it with others suf- tools are written words will help on topics and submission of ab- fering from run-ins with nettles. slowly push back the boundaries of stracts, contact Jan Auyong at Oregon We’ve added Mr. Jackson’s papaya human ignorance — as E.M. Foster Sea Grant by phone (541) 737-5130, treatment to our jellyfish article on said of Virginia Woolf, they will strug- fax (541) 737-2392 or e-mail, the web and we welcome comments gle to bring light a little further into [email protected]. on his or any other remedies. the darkness.

JULY-AUGUST 1998 • 7 Maryland Marine Notes Calendar Volume 16, Number 4 July-August 1998 October 28-30 — Ocean November 18-22 — Shellfish Maryland Marine Notes is published Restoration six times a year by the Maryland Sea Discovery Symposium Grant College for and about the marine research, education and outreach commu- Washington, Hilton Head, South Carolina. The nity around the state. DC. A sympo- Second International Conference on This newsletter is produced and fund- sium on Fifty Shellfish Restoration will provide an ed by the Maryland Sea Grant College Years of Ocean Dis- opportunity for participants to dis- Program, which receives support from the covery, sponsored by cuss approaches for restoring coast- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- al ecosystems through habitat quali- ministration. Managing Editor, Sandy the National Academy of Sciences. Rodgers; Contributing Editors, Jack Greer Topics will include achievements ty assessment and restoration; stock and Merrill Leffler. Send items for the in biological, chemical and physi- enhancement, management and newsletter to: cal oceanography, marine geology restoration; and habitat remediation Maryland Marine Notes and geophysics, and deep-sea ex- through watershed management. Maryland Sea Grant College ploration with the ALVIN subma- The conference will include a ses- 0112 Skinner Hall rine. Among the speakers will be sion organized by the Oyster Dis- University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742 Rita Colwell, the new director of ease Research Program. (301) 405-6376, fax (301) 314-9581 NSF. For registration information, e-mail: [email protected] Registration costs $75 ($25 for contact Elaine Knight by e-mail, For more information about Maryland Sea students). For more information, [email protected]; voice mail, Grant, visit our web site: contact Ann Carlisle or Ed Urban (843) 727-2078; or fax, (843) 727- http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/MDSG at the Ocean Studies Board, (202) 2080. Up-to-date information on 334-2714, [email protected], or the conference is available on the check the web at http://www2.nas. web at http://www.noaa.gov/ edu/osb/2326.html. SCSeaGrant/text/ICSR.html.