Books: Artist in Wonderland

SEA OF CORTEZ—John Steinbeck & Edward F. Ricketts—Viking ($5).

Novelist John Steinbeck and his biologist friend. Director Edward F. Ricketts of the Pacific Biological Laboratories, decided to make an expedition to the Gulf of California, Mexico's long Pacific arm which used to be called the Sea of Cortez. They wanted to find out all they could about the sea creatures, especially the teeming invertebrates along the shores—how they changed in numbers, size, form from place to place, how they lived, loved, ate, fought, fled, hid, died.

Their itinerary lay down a thousand miles of...