In the Netherlands this information is the stuff of kindergarten classes, but in the United States, even in those areas where survival depends upon such knowledge, it does not even repose in the intelligentsia, far less the political process. It has made no impact on engineering manuals, where dependence upon rigid construction has assumed the aspect of a creed. Yet this simple information has the same relevance to survival by the sea in New Jersey as does the knowledge that plant photosynthesis is the source of all food and atmospheric oxygen. This knowledge is linked to survival.