Upon the appearance of Mr. Colcord's "The Drifting Diamond," critics
throughout the country had a great deal to say on the pictures of the sea
which it contained. Mr. Colcord was compared to Conrad, to Stevenson, and
to others who have written of the sea with much success. It is gratifying,
therefore, that in this book the briny deep furnishes the background--in
some instances the plot itself--for each one of its eleven tales. Coupled
with his own intimate knowledge and appreciation of the oceans and the
life that is lived on them--a knowledge and appreciation born in him
through a long line of seafaring ancestry and fostered by his own love for
the sea--he has a powerful style of writing. Vividness is perhaps its
distinguishing characteristic, though fluency and a peculiar feeling for
words also mark it.