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Title: The Ocean and its Wonders
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21754]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OCEAN AND ITS WONDERS ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
THE OCEAN AND ITS WONDERS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
CHAPTER ONE.
WHAT THE OCEAN HAS TO SAY--ITS WHISPERS--ITS THUNDERS--ITS SECRETS.
There is a voice in the waters of the great sea. It calls to man
continually. Sometimes it thunders in the tempest, when the waves leap
high and strong and the wild winds shriek and roar, as if to force our
attention. Sometimes it whispers in the calm, and comes rippling on the
shingly beach in a still, small voice, as if to solicit our regard. But
whether that voice of ocean comes in crashing billows or in gentle
murmurs, it has but one tale to tell,--it speaks of the love, and power,
and majesty of Him who rides upon the storm, and rules the wave.
Yes, the voice of ocean tells but one tale; yet there are many chapters
in that wonderful story. The sea has much to say; far more than could
possibly be comprehended in one volume, however large. It tells us of
the doings of man on its broad bosom, from the day in which he first
ventured to paddle along shore in the hollow trunk of a tree, to the day
when he launched his great iron ship of 20,000 tons, and rushed out to
sea, against wind and tide, under an impulse equal to the united
strength of 11,500 horses. No small portion of the ocean's tale this,
comprising many chapters of deeds of daring, blood, villainy, heroism,
and enterprise. But with this portion of its story we have nothing to
do just now. It tells us, also, of God's myriad and multiform
creatures, that dwell in its depths, from the vast whale, whose speed is
so great, that it might, if it chose, circle round the world in a few
days, to the languid zoophyte, which clings to the rock, and bears more
resemblance to a plant than to a living animal.
The sea has secrets, too, some of which it will not divulge until that
day when its Creator shall command it to give up its dead; while others
it is willing to part with to those who question it closely, patiently,
and with intelligence.
Among the former kind of secrets are those foul deeds that have been
perpetrated, in all ages, by abandoned men; when no human ears listened
to the stifled shriek, or the gurgling plunge; when no human eyes beheld
the murderous acts, the bloody decks, the blazing vessels, or the final
hiss of the sinking wrecks.
Among the latter kind of secrets are the lives and habits of the
creatures of the deep, and the causes and effects of those singular
currents of air and water, which, to the eye of ignorance, seem to be
nothing better than irregularity and confusion; but which, to the minds
of those who search them out, and have pleasure therein, are recognised
as a part of that wonderful, orderly, and systematic arrangement of
things that we call Nature: much of which we now know, more of which we
shall certainly know, as each day and year adds its quota to the sum of
human knowledge; but a great deal of which will, doubtless, remain for
ever hidden in the mind of nature's God, whose ways are wonderful, and
past finding out. It is the latter class of secrets to which we purpose
directing the readers attention in the following pages.
On approaching so vast a subject, we feel like the traveller who,
finding himself suddenly transported into the midst of a new and
magnificent region, stands undecided whither to direct his steps in the
endlessly varied scene. Or, still more, like the visitor to our great
International Exhibition of _1862_, who,--entering abruptly that
gigantic palace, where were represented the talent, the ingenuity, time
wealth, and industry of every people and clime,--attempts, in vain, to
systematise his explorations, or to fix his attention. It is probable
that, in each of these supposed cases, the traveller and visitor,
resigning the desire to achieve what is impossible, would give
themselves up to the agreeable guidance of a wandering and wayward
fancy.
Let us, reader, act in a somewhat similar manner. Let us touch here,
and there, and everywhere, on the wonders of the sea, and listen to such
notes of the Ocean's Voice as strike upon our ears most pleasantly.
CHAPTER TWO.
COMPOSITION OF THE SEA--ITS SALTS--POWER AND USES OF WATER--ADVANTAGE
AND DISADVANTAGE OF SALTS--ANECDOTE--DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS--BROOKES
APPARATUS--IMPORTANCE OF THE SEARCH AFTER TRUTH--ILLUSTRATIONS--
DISCOVERIES RESULTING FROM DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS.
Before proceeding to the consideration of the wonders connected with and
contained in the sea, we shall treat of the composition of the sea
itself and of its extent, depth, and bottom.
What is the sea made of? Salt water, is the ready reply that rises
naturally to every lip. But to this we add the question,--What is salt
water? or, as there are many kinds of salt water, of what sort of salt
water does the sea consist? To these queries we give the following
reply, which, we doubt not, will rather surprise some of our readers.
Fresh water, as most people are aware, is composed of two gases--oxygen
and hydrogen. Sea water is composed of the same gases, with the
addition of muriate of soda, magnesia, iron, lime, sulphur, copper,
silex, potash, chlorine, iodine, bromine, ammonia, and silver. What a
dose! Let bathers think of it next time they swallow a gulp of sea
water.
Most of these substances, however, exist in comparatively small quantity
in the sea, with the exception of muriate of soda, or common table salt;
of which, as all bathers know from bitter experience, there is a very
considerable quantity. The quantity of silver contained in sea water is
very small indeed. Nevertheless, small though it be, the ocean is so
immense, that, it has been calculated, if all the silver in it were
collected, it would form a mass that would weigh about two hundred
million tons!
The salt of the ocean varies considerably in different parts. Near the
equator, the great heat carries up a larger proportion of water by
evaporation than in the more temperate regions; and thus, as salt is not
removed by evaporation, the ocean in the torrid zone is salter than in
the temperate or frigid zones.
The salts of the sea, and other substances contained in it, are conveyed
thither by the fresh-water streams that pour into it from all the
continent of the world. Maury, in his delightful work, "The Physical
Geography of the Sea," tells us that "water is Nature's great carrier.
With its currents it conveys heat away from the torrid zone, and ice
from the frigid; or, bottling the caloric away in the vesicle of its
vapour, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it by unknown
paths to the most distant parts of the Earth. The materials of which
the coral builds the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered
by this restless leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys, in all
latitudes. Some it washes down from the Mountains of the Moon in
Africa, or out of the gold-fields of Australia, or from the mines of
Potosi; others from the battle-fields of Europe, or from the marble
quarries of ancient Greece and Rome. The materials thus collected, and
carried over falls and down rapids, are transported to the sea."
Here, as these substances cannot be evaporated, they would accumulate to
such a degree as to render the ocean uninhabitable by living creatures,
had not God provided against this by the most beautiful compensation.
He has filled the ocean with innumerable animals and marine plants,
whose special duty it is to seize and make use of the substances thus
swept from the land, and reconvert them into solids. We cannot form an
adequate conception of the extent of the great work carried on
continually in this way; but we see part of it in the chalk cliffs, the
marl beds of the sea shore, and the coral islands of the South Seas,--of
which last more particular notice shall be taken in a succeeding
chapter.
The operations of the ocean are manifold. Besides forming a great
reservoir, into which what may be termed the impurities of the land are
conveyed, it is, as has been shown, the great laboratory of Nature,
where these are reconverted, and the general balance restored. But we
cannot speak of these things without making passing reference to the
operations of water, as that wonder-working agent of which the ocean
constitutes but a part.
Nothing in this world is ever lost or annihilated. As the ocean
receives all the water that flows from the land, so it returns that
water, fresh and pure, in the shape of vapour, to the skies; where, in
the form of clouds, it is conveyed to those parts of the earth where its
presence is most needed, and precipitated in the form of rain and dew,
fertilising the soil, replenishing rivers and lakes, penetrating the
earth's deep caverns; whence it bubbles up in the shape of springs, and,
after having gladdened the heart of man by driving his mills and causing
his food to grow, it finds its way again into the sea: and thus the good
work goes on with ceaseless regularity.
Water beats upon the rocks of the sea-shore until it pounds them into
sand, or rolls them into pebbles and boulders. It also sweeps the rich
soil from the mountains into the valleys. In the form of snow it
clothes the surface of the temperate and frigid zones with a warm
mantle, which preserves vegetable life from the killing frosts of
winter. In the form of ice it splits asunder the granite hills; and in
the northern regions it forms great glaciers, or masses of solidified
snow, many miles in extent, and many hundred feet thick. These glaciers
descend by slow, imperceptible degrees, to the sea; their edges break
off and fall into it, and, floating southward, sometimes in great
mountainous masses, are seen by man in the shape of icebergs.
Frequently huge rocks, that have fallen upon these glaciers from cliffs
in the arctic regions, are carried by them to other regions, and are
deposited on flat beaches, far from their native cliffs.
The saltness of the sea rendering it more dense, necessarily renders it
more buoyant, than fresh water. This is obviously a great advantage to
man in the matter of commerce. A ship does not sink so deep in the sea
as it does in a fresh-water lake; hence it can carry more cargo with
greater facility. It is easier to swim in salt than in fresh water.
The only disadvantage to commerce in the saltness of the sea is the
consequent unfitness of its water for drinking. Many and harrowing are
the accounts of instances in which sailors have been reduced to the most
terrible extremities for want of fresh water; and many a time, since
navigation began, have men been brought to feel the dread reality of
that condition which is so forcibly expressed in the poem of the
"Ancient Mariner":--
"Water, water everywhere,
And not a drop to drink."
Science, however, at length enabled us to overcome this disadvantage of
saltness. By the process of distillation, men soon managed to procure
enough water at least to save their lives. One captain of a ship, by
accident, lost all his fresh water; and, before he could put into port
to replenish, a gale of wind, which lasted three weeks, drove him far
out to sea. He had no distilling apparatus on board, and it seemed as
if all hope of the crew escaping the most horrible of deaths were
utterly taken away. In this extremity the captain's inventive genius
came to his aid. He happened to have on board an old iron pitch-pot,
with a wooden cover. Using this as a boiler, a pipe made of a pewter
plate, and a wooden cask as a receiver, he set to work, filled the pot
with sea water, put an ounce of soap therein to assist in purifying it,
and placed it on the fire. When the pot began to boil, the steam passed
through the pipe into the cask, where it was condensed into water, minus
the saline particles, which, not being evaporable, were left behind in
the pitch-pot. In less than an hour a quart of fresh water was thus
obtained; which, though not very palatable, was sufficiently good to
relieve the thirst of the ship's crew. Many ships are now regularly
supplied with apparatus for distilling sea water; and on the African
coasts and other unhealthy stations, where water is bad, the men of our
navy drink no other water than that which is distilled from the sea.
The salts of the ocean have something to do with the creating of oceanic
currents; which, in their turn, have a powerful influence on climates.
They also retard evaporation to some extent, and have some effect in
giving to the sea its beautiful blue colour.
The ocean covers about two-thirds of the entire surface of the Earth.
Its depth has never been certainly ascertained; but from the numberless
experiments and attempts that have been made, we are warranted in coming
to the conclusion that it nowhere exceeds five miles in depth, probably
does not quite equal that. Professor Wyville Thompson estimates the
average depth of the sea at about two miles.
Of the three great oceans into which the sea is naturally divided--the
Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Arctic--the Atlantic is supposed to be
the deepest. There are profundities in its bosom which have never yet
been sounded, and probably never will be.
The difficulty of sounding great depths arises from the fact that, after
a large quantity of line has been run out, the shock of the lead
striking the bottom cannot be felt. Moreover, there is sufficient force
in the deep-sea currents to sweep out the line after the lead has
reached the bottom so that, with the ordinary sounding-lines in use
among navigators, it is impossible to sound great depths. Scientific
men have, therefore, taxed their brains to invent instruments for
sounding the deep sea--for touching the bottom in what sailors call
"blue water." Some have tried it with a silk thread as a plumb-line,
some with spun-yarn threads, and various other materials and
contrivances. It has even been tried by exploding petards and ringing
bells in the deep sea, when it was supposed that an echo or
reverberation might be heard, and, from the known rate at which sound
travels through water, the depth might thus be ascertained. Deep-sea
leads have been constructed having a column of air in them, which, by
compression, would show the aqueous pressure to which they had been
subjected; but the trial proved to be more than the instrument could
stand.
Captain Maury, of the American Navy--whose interesting book has been
already referred to--invented an instrument for sounding the deep sea.
Here is his own description of it:--"To the lead was attached, upon the
principle of the screw-propeller, a small piece of clock-work for
registering the number of revolutions made by the little screw during
the descent; and it having been ascertained by experiment in shoal water
that the apparatus, in descending, would cause the propeller to make one
revolution for every fathom of perpendicular descent, hands provided
with the power of self-registering were attached to a dial, and the
instrument was complete. It worked beautifully in moderate depths, but
failed in blue water, from the difficulty of hauling it up if the line
used were small, and from the difficulty of getting it down if the line
used were large enough to give the requisite strength for hauling it
up." One eccentric old sea captain proposed to sound the sea with a
torpedo, or shell, which should explode the instant it touched the
bottom. Another gentleman proposed to try it by the magnetic telegraph,
and designed an instrument which should telegraph to the expectant
measurers above how it was getting on in the depths below. But all
these ingenious devices failed, and it is probable that the deepest
parts of the ocean-bed still remained untouched by man.
At last an extremely simple and remarkably successful deep-sea sounding
apparatus was invented by Mr Brooke, an American officer. It consisted
of nothing more than thin twine for a sounding-line, and a cannon ball
for a sinker. The twine was made for the purpose, fine but very strong,
and was wound on a reel to the extent of ten thousand fathoms. The
cannon ball, which was from thirty-two to sixty-eight pounds' weight,
had a hole quite through it, into which was fixed a sliding rod, the end
of which, covered with grease, projected several inches beyond the ball.
By an ingenious and simple contrivance, the cannon ball was detached
when it reached the bottom of the sea, and the light rod was drawn up
with specimens of the bottom adhering to the grease.
With this instrument the Americans went to work with characteristic
energy, and, by always using a line of the same size and make, and a
sinker of the same shape and weight, they at last ascertained the law of
descent. This was an important achievement, because, having become
familiar with the precise rate of descent at all depths, they were
enabled to tell very nearly when the ball ceased to carry out the line,
and when it began to go out in obedience to the influence of deep-sea
currents. The greatest depth reached by Brooke's sounding-line is said
to have been a little under five miles in the North Atlantic.
The value of investigations of this kind does not appear at first sight,
to unscientific men. But those who have paid even a little attention to
the methods and processes by which grand discoveries have been made, and
useful inventions have been perfected, can scarcely have failed to come
to the conclusion that _the search after_ TRUTH, _pure and simple, of
any kind, and of every kind, either with or without reference to a
particular end_, is one of the most useful as well as elevating pursuits
in which man can engage.
_All_ truth is worth knowing and labouring after. No one can tell to
what useful results the discovery of even the smallest portion of truth
may lead. Some of the most serviceable and remarkable inventions of
modern times have been the result of discoveries of truths which at
first seemed to have no bearing whatever on those inventions. When
James Watt sat with busy reflective mind staring at a boiling kettle,
and discovered the expansive power of steam, no one could have for a
moment imagined that in the course of years the inventions founded on
the truth then discovered would result in the systematic driving of a
fleet of floating palaces all round the world at the rate of from twelve
to fifteen or twenty miles an hour! Instances of a similar kind might
be multiplied without end. In like manner, deep-sea sounding may lead
to great, as yet unimagined, results. Although yet in its infancy, it
has already resulted in the discovery of a comparatively shallow plateau
or ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, rising between Ireland and
Newfoundland; a discovery which has been turned to practical account,
inasmuch as the plateau has been chosen to be the bed of our electric
telegraph between Europe and America. The first Atlantic cable was laid
on it; and although that cable suffered many vicissitudes at first, as
most contrivances do in their beginnings, communication between the two
continents was successfully established. Soundings taken elsewhere
showed that somewhat similar plateaus existed in other parts of the
Atlantic, and now the whole of Western Europe is being bound more
firmly, by additional cables, to the eastern seaboard of America.
This great and glorious achievement has been the result of the discovery
of two truths,--of a truth in science on the one hand, and a truth in
regard to the structure of the bed of the sea on the other. The study
of electricity and of deep-sea soundings was begun and carried on for
the sake of the discovery of _truth_ alone, and without the most distant
reference to the Atlantic Telegraph,--yet that telegraph has been one of
the results of that study. Who can tell how many more shall follow?
And even were no other result ever to follow, this one may prove to be
of the most stupendous importance to the human race.
Another discovery that has been made by deep-sea sounding is, that the
lowest depths of the ocean are always in a state of profound calm.
Oceanic storms do not extend to the bottom. When the tempest is lashing
the surface of the sea into a state of the most violent and tremendous
agitation, the caverns of the deep are wrapped in perfect repose. This
has been ascertained from the fact that in many places the bottom of the
sea, as shown by the specimens brought up by Brooke's apparatus, and
more recently by Professor Thompson's deep-sea dredge, is composed of
exceedingly minute shells of marine insects. These shells, when
examined by the microscope, are found to be unbroken and perfect, though
so fragile that they must certainly have been broken to pieces had they
ever been subjected to the influence of currents, or to the pulverising
violence of waves. Hence the conclusion that the bottom of the sea is
in a state of perpetual rest and placidity.
Indeed, when we think of it, we are led to conclude that this must
necessarily be the case. There are, as we shall presently show,
currents of vast size and enormous power constantly flowing through the
ocean; and when we think of the tremendous power of running water to cut
through the solid rock, as exemplified in the case of Niagara, and many
other rivers, what would be the result of the action of currents in the
sea, compared with which Niagara is but a tiny rivulet? Ocean currents,
then, flow on a bed of still water, that protects the bottom of the sea
from forces which, by calculation, we know would long ago have torn up
the foundations of the deep, and would probably have destroyed the whole
economy of nature, had not this beautiful arrangement been provided by
the all-wise Creator.
CHAPTER THREE.
WAVES--SYSTEM IN ALL THINGS--VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE--ILLUSTRATIVE
ANECDOTE--HEIGHT OF WAVES--DR. SCORESBY--SIZE, VELOCITY, AND AWFUL POWER
OF WAVES--ANECDOTES REGARDING THEM--TIDES.
When a man stands on the deck of some tight-built ship, holding on to
the weather bulwarks, and gazing with unphilosophic eye through the
blinding spray at the fury of the tempest--by which the billows are made
to roll around him like liquid mountains, and the ship is tossed beneath
him like a mere chip, the sport and plaything of the raging waters--he
is apt to think, should his thoughts turn in that direction at all, that
all is unmitigated confusion; that the winds, which blew west yesterday
and blow east to-day,--shifting, it may be, with gusty squalls, now
here, now there, in chaotic fury,--are actuated by no laws, governed by
no directing power.
Yet no thought could be more unphilosophical than this. Apart
altogether from divine revelation, by which we are informed that "all
deeps, fire, and hail, snow, and vapour, and stormy wind," are
"fulfilling God's word" (which information we are bound to receive as a
matter of faith if we be Christians, and as a matter of necessity if we
be men of common sense, because it is mere absurdity to suppose that the
"stormy winds," etcetera, are _not_ fulfilling God's word--or will), we
now know, to a great extent from practical experience and scientific
investigation, that the winds blow and the waters of the ocean flow in
grand, regular, uninterrupted currents. Amongst these there are
numberless eddies, which, perhaps, have tended to fill our minds with
the idea of irregularity and confusion; but which, nevertheless, as well
as the grand currents themselves, are subject to law, and are utterly
devoid of caprice.
In regard to these matters there is much about which we are still in
ignorance. But the investigations of late years--especially those
conducted under the superintendence of Captain Maury of the American
Navy, and Doctors Carpenter and Thompson of England--have shown that our
atmosphere and our ocean act in accordance with a systematic
arrangement, many facts regarding which have been discovered, and
turned, in some cases, to practical account. See Note 1.
A very interesting instance of the practical use to which scientific
inquiry can be turned, even in its beginnings, is given by Maury. After
telling us of the existence and nature of a current in the ocean called
the Gulf Stream, he gives the following account of the manner in which
upon one occasion be made use of his theoretical knowledge.
In the month of December 1853, the fine steam-ship _San Francisco_
sailed from New York with a regiment of United States troops on board,
bound for California by way of Cape Horn. She was overtaken, while
crossing the Gulf Stream, by a gale of wind, in which she was dreadfully
crippled. Her decks were swept, and, by one single blow of those
terrible seas that the storms raise in the Gulf Stream, more than in any
other part of the Atlantic, one hundred and seventy-nine souls, officers
and soldiers, were washed overboard and drowned.
The day after this disaster she was seen by one vessel, and again, the
next day, December 26th, by another; but neither of them could render
her any assistance.
When these two vessels arrived in the United States and reported what
they had seen, the most painful apprehensions were entertained by
friends for the safety of those on board the steamer. Vessels were sent
out to search for and relieve her. But where should these vessels go?
Where should they look?
An appeal was made to know what light the system of researches carried
on at the National Observatory concerning winds and currents could throw
upon the subject.
The materials they had been discussing were examined, and a chart was
prepared to show the course of the Gulf Stream at that season of the
year. Two revenue cutters were then appointed to proceed to sea in
search of the steamer, and Maury was requested to "furnish them with
instructions."
It will be observed here that the gentleman thus appealed to was at the
time engaged in his study at Washington, utterly ignorant of all that
had occurred within the previous few weeks on the stormy Atlantic,
except through the reports brought thence by ships. These reports
furnished him with meagre data to proceed upon--simply that a crippled
steamer had been seen in a certain latitude and longitude on a
particular day.
But this information was sufficient for the practical man of science.
Proceeding upon the supposition that the steamer had been completely
disabled, he drew two lines on the chart to define the limits of her
drift. This his previous knowledge of the flow of the Gulf Stream at
all seasons of the year enabled him to do. Between these two lines, he
said, the steamer, if she could neither steam nor sail after the gale,
had drifted. And that she could neither steam nor sail he had good
reason to suppose from the account of her brought in by the vessels
above mentioned. A certain point was marked on the chart as being the
spot where the searching vessels might expect to fall in with the wreck.
While these preparations were being made, two ships fell in with the
wreck and relieved the crew. This, however, was not known at the time
by the anxious friends on shore. The cutters sailed on their mission,
and reached the indicated spot in the sea, where, of course, their
assistance was now unnecessary. But when the vessels that had relieved
the crew of the wreck arrived in harbour and reported where the wreck
had been last seen, it was found to be within a few miles of the spot
indicated by Maury!
Thus, upon very slight data, a man of science and observation was
enabled, while seated in his study, to follow the drift of a wrecked
vessel over the pathless deep, and to indicate to a rescue party, not
only the exact course they ought to steer, but the precise spot where
the wreck should be found.
The waves of the ocean are by no means so high as people imagine. Their
appearance in the Atlantic or Pacific, when raised by a violent storm,
is indeed very awful, and men have come to speak of them as being
"mountains of water." But their sublime aspect and their tumultuous
state of agitation have contributed much to deceive superficial
observers as to their real height. Scientific men have measured the
height of the waves.
Not many years ago a vessel, while crossing the Atlantic, was overtaken
by a violent storm. The sea rose in its might; the good ship reeled
under the combined influence of wind and waves. While the majority of
the passengers sought refuge from the driving spray in the cabin, one
eccentric old gentleman was seen skipping about the deck with unwonted
activity--now on the bulwarks, now on the quarter-deck, and anon in the
rigging; utterly regardless of the drenching sea and the howling wind,
and seeming as though he were a species of human stormy petrel. This
was the celebrated Dr Scoresby; a man who had spent his youth and
manhood in the whale-fishing; who, late in life, entered the Church,
and, until the day of his death, took a special delight in directing the
attention of sailors to Him whose word stilled the tempest and bade the
angry waves be calm. Being an enthusiast in scientific research, Dr
Scoresby was availing himself of the opportunity afforded by this storm
to _measure the waves_! Others have made similar measurements, and the
result goes to prove that waves seldom or never rise much more than ten
feet above the sea-level. The corresponding depression sinks to the
same depth, thus giving the entire height of the largest waves an
elevation of somewhere between twenty and thirty feet. When it is
considered that sometimes the waves of the sea (especially those off the
Cape of Good Hope) are so broad that only a few of them occupy the space
of a mile, and that they travel at the rate of about forty miles an
hour, we may have some slight idea of the grandeur as well as the power
of the ocean billows. The forms represented in our illustration are
only wavelets on the backs of these monster waves.
Waves travel at a rate which increases in proportion to their size and
the depth of water in which they are formed. Every one knows that on
most lakes they are comparatively small and harmless. In some lakes,
however, such as Lake Superior in North America, which is upwards of
three hundred miles long, the waves are so formidable as to resemble
those of the ocean, and they are capable of producing tremendous
effects. But the waves of the sea, when roused to their greatest
height, and travelling at their greatest speed, are terrible to behold.
Their force is absolutely irresistible. Sometimes waves of more than
usually gigantic proportions arise, and, after careering over the broad
sea in unimpeded majesty, fall with crushing violence on some doomed
shore. They rush onward, pass the usual barriers of the sea-beach, and
do not retire until horrible devastation has been carried far into the
land.
Maury gives the following anecdote from the notes of a Russian officer,
which shows the awful power of such waves.
"On the 23rd of December 1854, at 9:45 a.m., the shocks of an earthquake
were felt on board the Russian frigate _Diana_, as she lay at anchor in
the harbour of Simoda, not far from Jeddo in Japan. In fifteen minutes
afterwards (10 o'clock) a large wave was observed rolling into the
harbour, and the water on the beach to be rapidly rising. The town, as
seen from the frigate, appeared to be sinking. This wave was followed
by another; and when the two receded, which was at fifteen minutes past
ten, there was not a house, save an unfinished temple, left standing.
These waves continued to come and go until half-past two p.m., during
which time the frigate was thrown on her beam-ends five times; a piece
of her keel, eighty-one feet long, was torn off; holes were knocked in
her by striking on the bottom, and she was reduced to a wreck. In the
course of five minutes the water in the harbour fell, it is said, from
twenty-three to three feet, and the anchors of the ship were laid bare.
There was a great loss of life; many houses were washed into the sea,
and many junks carried up--one two miles inland--and dashed to pieces on
the shore. The day was beautifully fine, and no warning was given of
the approaching convulsion: the sea was perfectly smooth when its
surface was broken by the first wave."
Monster waves of this kind occur at regular intervals, among the islands
of the Pacific, once and sometimes twice in the year; and this without
any additional influence of an earthquake, at least in the immediate
neighbourhood of the islands, though it is quite possible that
earthquakes in some remote part of the world may have something to do
with these waves.
One such wave is described as breaking on one of these islands with
tremendous violence. It appeared at first like a dark line, or low
cloud, or fog-bank, on the sea-ward horizon. The day was fine though
cloudy, and a gentle breeze was blowing; but the sea was not rougher, or
the breaker on the coral reef that encircled the island higher, than
usual. It was supposed to be an approaching thunder-storm; but the line
gradually drew nearer without spreading upon the sky, as would have been
the case had it been a thunder-cloud. Still nearer it came, and soon
those on shore observed that it was moving swiftly towards the island;
but there was no sound until it reached the smaller islands out at sea.
As it passed these, a cloud of white foam encircled each and burst high
into the air. This appearance was soon followed by a loud roar, and it
became evident that the object was an enormous wave. When it approached
the outer reef, its awful magnitude became more evident. It burst
completely over the reef at all points, with a deep, continuous roar;
yet, although part of its force was thus broken, on it came, as if with
renewed might, and finally fell upon the beach with a crash that seemed
to shake the solid earth; then, rushing impetuously up into the woods,
it levelled the smaller trees and bushes in its headlong course; and, on
retiring, left a scene of wreck and desolation that is quite
indescribable.
"Storm-waves," as those unusually gigantic billows are called, are said
to be the result of the removal of atmospheric pressure in certain parts
of the ocean over which a storm is raging. This removal of pressure
allows the portion thus relieved to be forced up high above the ordinary
sea-level by those other parts that are not so relieved.
The devastating effects of these storm-waves is still further
illustrated by the total destruction of Coringa, on the Coromandel
Coast, in 1789. During a hurricane, in December of that year, at the
moment when a high tide was at its highest point, and the north-west
wind was blowing with fury, accumulating the waters at the head of the
bay, three monstrous waves came rolling in from the sea upon the devoted
town, following each other at a short distance. The horror-stricken
inhabitants had scarcely time to note the fact of their approach, when
the first wave, sweeping everything in its passage, carried several feet
of water into the town. The second swept still further in its
destructive course, inundating all the low country. The third, rushing
onward in irresistible fury, overwhelmed everything, submerging the town
and twenty thousand of its inhabitants. Vessels at anchor at the mouth
of the river were carried inland; and the sea on retiring left heaps of
sand and mud, which rendered it a hopeless task either to search for the
dead or for buried property.
We have spoken of waves "travelling" at such and such a rate, but they
do not in reality travel at all. It is the undulation, or, so to speak,
the _motion_ of a wave, that travels; in the same manner that a wave
passes from one end of a carpet to the other end when it is shaken. The
water remains stationary, excepting the spray and foam on the surface,
and is only possessed of a rising and sinking motion. This undulatory
motion, or impulse, is transmitted from each particle of water to its
neighbouring particle, until it reaches the last drop of water on the
shore. But when a wave reaches shallow water it has no longer room to
sink to its proper depth; hence the water composing it acquires _actual_
motion, and rushes to the land with more or less of the tremendous
violence that has been already described.
Waves are caused by wind, which first ruffles the surface of the sea
into ripples, and then, acting with ever-increasing power on the little
surfaces thus raised, blows _them_ up into waves, and finally into great
billows. Sometimes, however, winds burst upon the calm ocean with such
sudden violence that for a time the waves cannot lift their heads. The
instant they do so, they are cast down and scattered in foam, and the
ocean in a few minutes presents the appearance of a cauldron of boiling
milk! Such squalls are extremely dangerous to mariners, and vessels
exposed to them are often thrown on their beam-ends, even though all
sail has been previously taken in. Generally speaking, however, the
immediate effect of wind passing either lightly or furiously over the
sea is to raise its surface into waves. But these waves, however large
they may be, do not affect the waters of the ocean more than a few yards
below its surface. The water below their influence is comparatively
calm, being affected only by ocean currents.
The tides of the sea--as the two great flowings and ebbings of the water
every twenty-four hours are called--are caused principally by the
attractive influence of the moon, which, to a small extent, lifts the
waters of the ocean towards it, as it passes over them, and thus causes
a high wave. This wave, or current, when it swells up on the land,
forms high tide. When the moon's influence has completely passed away,
it is low tide. The moon raises this wave wherever it passes; not only
in the ocean directly under it, but, strange to say, it causes a similar
wave on the opposite side of the globe. Thus there are two waves always
following the moon, and hence the two high tides in the twenty-four
hours. This second wave has been accounted for in the following way:
The cohesion of particles of water is easily overcome. The moon, in
passing over the sea, separates the particles by her attractive power,
and draws the surface of the sea away from the solid globe. But the
moon also attracts the earth itself, and draws it away from the water on
its opposite side thus causing the high wave there, as represented in
the diagram, _figure 1_.
The sun has also a slight influence on the tides, but not to such an
extent as the moon. When the two luminaries exert their combined
influence in the same direction, they produce the phenomenon of a very
high or spring-tide, as in _figure 2_, where the tide at _a_ and _b_ has
risen extremely high, while at _c_ and _d_ it has fallen correspondingly
low. When they act in opposition to each other, as at the moon's
quarter, there occurs a very low or neap-tide. In _figure 3_ the moon
has raised high tide at _a_ and _b_, but the sun has counteracted its
influence to some extent at _c_ and _d_, thus producing neap-tides,
which neither rise so high nor fall so low as do other tides. Tides
attain various elevations in different parts of the world, partly owing
to local influences. In the Bristol Channel the tide rises to nearly
sixty feet, while in the Mediterranean it is extremely small, owing to
the landlocked nature of that sea preventing the tidal wave from having
its full effect. Up some gulfs and estuaries the tides sweep with the
violence of a torrent, and any one caught by them on the shore would be
overtaken and drowned before he could gain the dry land. In the open
sea they rise and fall to an elevation of little more than three or four
feet.
The value of the tides is unspeakable. They sweep from our shores
pollution of every kind, purify our rivers and estuaries, and are
productive of freshness and health all round the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The gentlemen here referred to are agreed as to the fact of systematic
arrangement of currents, though they differ in regard to some of the
causes thereof and other matters.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE GULF STREAM--ITS NATURE--CAUSE--ILLUSTRATION--EFFECT OF SMALL POWERS
UNITED--ADVENTURES OF A PARTICLE OF WATER--EFFECT OF GULF STREAM ON
CLIMATE--ITS COURSE--INFLUENCE ON NAVIGATION--SARGASSO SEA--SCIENTIFIC
EFFORTS OF PRESENT DAY--WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS--EFFECTS ON COMMERCE--
CAUSE OF STORMS--INFLUENCE OF GULF STREAM ON MARINE ANIMALS.
Of the varied motions of the sea, the most important, perhaps, as well
as the most wonderful, is the Gulf Stream. This mighty current has been
likened by Maury to a "river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it
never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks
and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. It
takes its rise in the Gulf of Mexico (hence its name), and empties into
the arctic seas. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the
Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater."
This great current is of the most beautiful indigo-blue colour as far
out as the Carolina coasts; and its waters are so distinctly separated
from those of the sea, that the line of demarcation may be traced by the
eye. Its influences on the currents of the sea, and on the climates and
the navigation of the world, are so great and important, that we think a
somewhat particular account of it cannot fail to interest the reader.
The waters of the Gulf Stream are salter than those of the sea; which
fact accounts for its deeper blue colour, it being well known that salt
has the effect of intensifying the blue of deep water.
The cause of the Gulf Stream has long been a subject of conjecture and
dispute among philosophers. Some have maintained that the Mississippi
river caused it; but this theory is upset by the fact that the stream is
salt--salter even than the sea--while the river is fresh. Besides, the
volume of water emptied into the Gulf of Mexico by that river is not
equal to the _three thousandth part_ of that which issues from it in the
form of the Gulf Stream.
Scientific men are still disagreed on this point. They all, indeed,
seem to hold the opinion that _difference of temperature_ has to do with
the origination of the stream; but while some, such as Captain Maury,
hold that this is the _chief_ cause, others, such as Professor Thompson,
believe the trade-winds to be the most important agent in the matter.
We venture to incline to the opinion that not only the Gulf Stream, but
_all_ the constant currents of the sea are due chiefly to _difference of
temperature and saltness_. These conditions alter the specific gravity
of the waters of the ocean in some places more than in others; hence the
equilibrium is destroyed, and currents commence to flow as a natural
result, seeking to restore that equilibrium. But as the disturbing
agents are always at work, so the currents are of necessity constant.
Other currents there are in the sea, but they are the result of winds
and various local causes; they are therefore temporary and partial,
while the _great_ currents of the ocean are permanent, and are,
comparatively, little affected by the winds. Every one knows that when
a pot is put on the fire to boil, the water contained in it, as soon as
it begins to get heated, commences to circulate. The heated water rises
to the top, the cold descends. When heated more than that which has
ascended, it in turn rises to the surface; and so there is a regular
current established in the pot, which continues to flow as long as the
heating process goes on. This same principle of temperature, then, is
one of the causes of the Gulf Stream. The torrid zone is the furnace
where the waters of the ocean are heated. But in this process of
heating, evaporation goes on to a large extent; hence the waters become
salter than those elsewhere. Here is another agent called into action.
The hot salt waters of the torrid zone at once rush off to distribute
their superabundant caloric and salt to the seas of the frigid zones;
where the ice around the poles has kept the waters cold, and the absence
of great heat, and, to a large extent, of evaporation, has kept them
comparatively fresh. In fact, the waters of the sea require to be
stirred, because numerous agents are at work day and night, from pole to
pole, altering their specific gravity and deranging, so to speak, the
mixture. This stirring is secured by the unalterable laws which the
Creator has fixed for the carrying on of the processes of nature. The
currents of the sea may be said to be the result of this process of
stirring its waters.
It is curious and interesting to note the apparently insignificant
instruments which God has seen fit to use in the carrying out of his
plans. The smallest coral insect that builds its little cell in the
southern seas exercises an influence in the production of the Gulf
Stream. It has been said, with some degree of truth, that one such
insect is capable of setting in motion the entire ocean! The coral
insect has, in common with many other marine creatures, been gifted with
the power of extracting from sea water the lime which it contains, in
order to build its cell. The lime thus extracted leaves a minute
particle of water necessarily destitute of that substance. Before that
particle can be restored to its original condition of equality, every
other particle of water in the ocean must part with a share of its
superabundant lime! The thing _must_ be done. That bereaved particle
cannot rest without its lime. It forthwith commences to travel for the
purpose of laying its brother-particles under contribution; and it
travels far and wide--round and round the world. Myriads upon myriads
of coral insects are perpetually engaged in thus robbing the sea water
of its lime; shells are formed in a similar manner: so that our particle
soon finds itself in company with innumerable other particles of water
in a like destitute condition. It rises to the surface. Here the sun,
as if to compensate it for the loss of its lime, bestows upon it an
unusual amount of heat; and the surrounding particles, not to be
outdone, make it almost unlimited presents of salt. Full to overflow
with the gifts of its new companions, it hastens to bestow of its
superabundance on less favoured particles; joins the great army of the
ocean's currents; enters, perchance, the Gulf of Mexico, where it is
turned back, and hastens along with the Gulf Stream, with all its
natural warmth of character, to ameliorate the climate of Great Britain
and the western shores of Europe. Having accomplished this benevolent
work, it passes on, with some of its heat and vigour still remaining, to
the arctic seas--where it is finally robbed of all its heat and nearly
all its salt, and frozen into an icicle--there for many a long day to
exert a chilling influence on the waters and the atmosphere around it.
Being melted at last by the hot sun of the short arctic summer, it
hurries back with the cold currents of the north to the genial regions
of the equator, in search of its lost caloric and salt, taking in a full
cargo of lime, etcetera, as it passes the mouths of rivers. Arrived at
its old starting-point, our wanderer receives once more heat and salt to
the full, parts with its lime, and at once hastens off on a new voyage
of usefulness--to give out of its superabundance in exchange for the
superabundance of others: thus quietly teaching man the lesson that the
true principles of commerce were carried out in the depths of the sea
ages before he discovered them and carried them into practice on its
surface.
Perchance another fate awaits this adventurous particle of water.
Mayhap, before it reaches the cold regions of the north, it is
evaporated into the clouds, and descends upon the earth in fresh and
refreshing rain or dew. Having fertilised the fields, it flows back to
its parent ocean, laden with a superabundant cargo of earthy substances,
which it soon parts with in exchange for salt. And thus on it goes,
round and round the world; down in the ocean's depths, up in the cloudy
sky, deep in the springs of earth; ever moving, ever active, never lost,
and always fulfilling the end for which it was created.
All ocean currents are composed of water in one or other of the
conditions just described;--the hot and salt waters of the equator,
flowing north to be cooled and freshened; the cold and fresh waters of
the north, flowing south to be heated and salted. The Gulf Stream is
simply the stream of equatorial hot water that flows towards the pole
through the Atlantic. Its fountain-head is the region of the equator,
_not_ the Gulf of Mexico; but it is carried, by the conformation of the
land, into that gulf and deflected by it, and from it out into the ocean
in the direction of Europe. This stream in the Atlantic is well
defined, owing to the comparative narrowness of that sea.
The Gulf Stream, then, is like a river of oil in the ocean,--it
preserves its distinctive character for more than three thousand miles.
It flows towards the polar regions, and the waters of those regions flow
in counter-currents towards the equator, because of the fixed law that
water must seek its equilibrium as well as its level, thus keeping up a
continuous circulation of the hot waters towards the north and the cold
towards the south. There are similar currents in the Pacific, but they
are neither so large nor so regular as those of the Atlantic, owing to
the wide formation of the basin of the former sea.
The effect of the Gulf Stream on climate is very great. The dreary
fur-trading establishment of York Factory, on the shores of Hudson's
Bay, is surrounded by a climate of the most rigorous character--the
thermometer seldom rising up so high as zero during many months, and
often ranging down so low as 50 degrees below zero, sometimes even
lower, while the winter is seven or eight months long: the lakes and
rivers are covered with ice upwards of six feet thick, and the salt sea
itself is frozen. Yet this region lies in the same latitude with
Scotland, York Factory being on the parallel of 57 degrees north, which
passes close to Aberdeen! The difference in temperature between the two
places is owing very much, if not entirely, to the influence of the Gulf
Stream.
Starting from its caldron in the Gulf of Mexico, it carries a freight of
caloric towards the North Atlantic. Owing partly to the diurnal motion
of the Earth on its axis, its flow trends towards the east; hence its
warm waters embrace our favoured coasts, and ameliorate our climate,
while the eastern sea-board of North America is left, in winter, to the
rigour of unmitigated frost.
But besides the powerful influence of this current on climate, it exerts
a very considerable influence on navigation. In former times, when men
regarded the ocean as a great watery waste--utterly ignorant of the
exquisite order and harmonious action of all the varied substances and
conditions which prevail in the sea, just as much as on the land--they
committed themselves to the deep as to a blind chance, and took the
storms and calms they encountered as their inevitable fate, which they
had no means of evading. Ascertaining, as well as they could from the
imperfect charts of those days, the position of their desired haven,
they steered straight for it through fair weather and foul, regarding
interruptions and delays as mere unavoidable matters of course.
But when men began to study the causes and effects of the operation of
those elements in the midst of which they dwelt, they soon perceived
that order reigned where before they had imagined that confusion
revelled; and that, by adapting their operations to the ascertained laws
of Providence, they could, even upon the seemingly unstable sea, avoid
dangers and delays of many kinds, and oftentimes place themselves in
highly favourable circumstances. Navigators no longer dash recklessly
into the Gulf Stream, and try to stem its tide, as they did of yore;
but, as circumstances require, they either take advantage of the
counter-currents which skirt along it, or avail themselves of the warm
climate which it creates even in the midst of winter. There is a
certain spot in the Atlantic known by the name of the Sargasso Sea,
which is neither more nor less than a huge ocean-eddy, in which immense
quantities of sea-weed collect. The weed floats so thickly on the
surface as to give to the sea the appearance of solid land; and ships
find extreme difficulty in getting through this region, which is
rendered still further unnavigable by the prevalence of long-continued
calms. This Sargasso Sea is of considerable extent, and lies off the
west coast of Africa, a little to the north of the Cape Verd Islands.
In former years, ships used to get entangled in this weedy region for
weeks together, unable to proceed on their voyage. The great Columbus
fell in with it on his voyage to America, and his followers, thinking
they had reached the end of the world, were filled with consternation.
This Sargasso Sea lies in the same spot at the present day, but men now
know its extent and position. Instead of steering straight for port,
they proceed a considerable distance out of their way, and, by avoiding
this calm region, accomplish their voyages with much greater speed.
The ocean currents have been, by repeated and long-continued
investigation, ascertained and mapped out; so also have the currents of
the atmosphere, so that, now-a-days, by taking advantage of some of
these currents and avoiding others, voyages are performed, not only in
much shorter time, but with much greater precision and certainty. As it
was with ocean currents long ago, so was it with atmospheric.
Navigators merely put to sea, steered as near as possible on their
direct course, and took advantage of such winds as chanced to blow. Now
they know whither to steer in order to meet with such winds and currents
as will convey them in the shortest space of time to the end of their
voyage. The knowledge necessary to this has not been gained by the
gigantic effort of one mind, nor by the accidental collocation of the
results of the investigations of many ordinary minds. But a few
master-minds have succeeded in gathering within their own grasp the
myriad facts collected by thousands of naval men, of all countries, in
their various voyages; and, by a careful comparison and philosophical
investigation of these facts, they have ascertained and systematised
truths which were before unknown, and have constructed wind and current
charts, by the use of which voyages are wonderfully shortened,
commercial enterprises greatly facilitated, and the general good and
comfort of nations materially advanced.
The truth of this has of late been proved by incontestable facts. For
instance, one year particular note was taken of the arrival of all the
vessels at the port of San Francisco, in California; and it was found
that of 124 vessels from the Atlantic coast of the United States, 70
were possessed of Maury's wind and current charts. The average passage
of these 70 vessels, on that long voyage round Cape Horn, was 135 days;
while the average of those that sailed _without_ the charts (that is,
trusted to their own unaided wisdom and experience) was 146 days.
Between England and Australia the average length of the voyage out used,
very recently, to be 124 days. With the aid of these charts it has now
been reduced to 97 days on the average.
The saving to commerce thus achieved is much greater than one would
suppose. At the risk of becoming tedious to uninquiring readers, we
will make a brief extract from Hunt's "Merchants' Magazine" of 1854, as
given in a foot-note in Maury's "Physical Geography of the Sea."
"Now, let us make a calculation of the annual saving to the commerce of
the United States effected by these charts and sailing directions.
According to Mr Maury, the average freight from the United States to
Rio Janeiro is 17.7 cents per ton per day; to Australia, 20 cents; to
California, also about 20 cents. The mean of this is a little over 19
cents per ton per day; but, to be within the mark, we will take it at
15, and include all the ports of South America, China, and the East
Indies.
"The sailing directions have shortened the passage to California 30
days; to Australia, 20; to Rio Janeiro, 10. The mean of this is 20; but
we will take it at 15, and also include the above-named ports of South
America, China, and the East Indies.
"We estimate the tonnage of the United States engaged in trade with
these places at 1,000,000 tons per annum.
"With these data, we see that there has been effected a saving for each
one of these tons, of 15 cents per day for a period of 15 days, which
will give an aggregate of 2,250,000 dollars (468,750 pounds) saved per
annum. This is on the outward voyage alone, and the tonnage trading
with all other parts of the world is also left out of the calculation.
Take these into consideration, and also the fact that there is a vast
amount of foreign tonnage trading between these places and the United
States, and it will be seen that the annual sum saved will swell to an
enormous amount."
Before the existence of the Gulf Stream was ascertained, vessels were
frequently drifted far out of their course in cloudy or foggy weather,
without the fact being known, until the clearing away of the mists
enabled the navigators to ascertain their position by solar observation.
Now, not only the existence, but the exact limits and action of this
stream are known and mapped; so that the current, which was formerly a
hindrance to navigation, is now made to be a help to it. The line of
demarcation between the warm waters of the Gulf Stream and the cold
waters of the sea is so sharp and distinct, that by the use of the
thermometer the precise minute of a ship's leaving or entering it can be
ascertained. And by the simple application of the thermometer to the
Gulf Stream the average passage from England to America has been reduced
from upwards of eight weeks to little more than four!
But this wonderful current is useful to navigators in more ways than
one. Its waters, being warm, carry a mild climate along with them
through the ocean even in the depth of winter, and thus afford a region
of shelter to vessels when attempting to make the Atlantic coast of
North America, which, at that season is swept by furious storms and
chilled by bitter frosts. The Atlantic coasts of the United States are
considered to be the most stormy in the world during winter, and the
difficulty of making them used to be much greater in former days than
now. The number of wrecks that take place off the shores of New England
in mid-Winter is frightful. All down that coast flows one of the great
cold currents from the north. The combined influence of the cold
atmosphere above it, and the warm atmosphere over the Gulf Stream, far
out at sea, produces terrific gales. The month's average of wrecks off
that coast has been as high as three a day. In making the coast,
vessels are met frequently by snow-storms, which clothe the rigging with
ice, rendering it unmanageable, and chill the seaman's frame, so that he
cannot manage his ship or face the howling blast. Formerly, when unable
to make the coast, owing to the fury of these bitter westerly gales, he
knew of no place of refuge short of the West Indies, whither he was
often compelled to run, and there await the coming of genial spring ere
he again attempted to complete his voyage. Now, however, the region of
the Gulf Stream is sought as a refuge. When the stiffened ropes refuse
to work, and the ship can no longer make head against the storm, she is
put about and steered for the Gulf Stream. In a few hours she reaches
its edge, and almost in a moment afterwards she passes from the midst of
winter into a sea of sunnier heat! "Now," as Maury beautifully
expresses it, "the ice disappears from her apparel; the sailor bathes
his limbs in tepid waters. Feeling himself invigorated and refreshed
with the genial warmth about him, he realises out there at sea the fable
of Antaeus and his mother Earth. He rises up and attempts to make his
port again, and is again, perhaps, as rudely met and beat back from the
north-west; but each time that he is driven off from the contest, he
comes forth from this stream, like the ancient son of Neptune, stronger
and stronger, until, after many days, his freshened strength prevails,
and he at last triumphs, and enters his haven in safety--though in this
contest he sometimes falls to rise no more, for it is terrible."
The power of ocean currents in drifting vessels out of their course, and
in sweeping away great bodies of ice, is very great; although, from the
fact that there is no land to enable the eye to mark the flow, such
drifts are not perceptible. One of the most celebrated drifts of modern
times, and the most astonishing on account of its extent, was that of
the _Fox_ in Baffin's Bay in the year 1857, a somewhat detailed account
of which will be found in a succeeding chapter.
The Gulf Stream is the cause of many of the most furious storms. The
fiercest gales sweep along with it, and it is supposed that the spring
and summer fogs of Newfoundland are caused by the immense volumes of
warm water poured by it into the cold seas of that region. We are told
that Sir Philip Brooke found the temperature of the sea on each side of
this stream to be at the freezing-point, while that of its waters was 80
degrees. From this it may be easily seen how great are the disturbing
influences around and above it; for, as the warm and moist atmosphere
over it ascends in virtue of its lightness, the cold air outside rushes
in violently to supply its place, thus creating storms.
The warm waters of this stream do not, it is believed, anywhere extend
to the bottom of the sea. It has been ascertained, by means of the
deep-sea thermometer, that they rest upon, or rather flow over, the cold
waters which are hastening from the north in search of those elements
which, in their wanderings, they have lost. As cold water is one of the
best non-conductors of heat, the Gulf Stream is thus prevented from
losing its caloric on its way across the Atlantic to ameliorate the
climates of the western coasts of Europe, and moderate the bitterness of
the northern seas. Were it otherwise, and this great stream flowed over
the crust of the Earth, so much of its heat would be extracted, that the
climates of France and our own islands would probably resemble that of
Canada. Our fields would be covered, for two, three, or four months,
with deep snow; our rivers would be frozen nearly to the bottom; our
land traffic would perhaps be carried on by means of sledges and
carioles; our houses would require to be fitted with double
window-frames and heated with iron stoves and our garments would have to
be made of the thickest woollens and the warmest furs.
The presence and the unchanging regularity of these great hot and cold
currents in the ocean is indicated very clearly by the living
inhabitants of the deep. These, as certainly as the creatures of the
land, are under the influence of climate; so much so, that many of them
never quit their native region in the sea. All the beautiful and
delicate marine creatures and productions which dwell in the warm waters
of the south are utterly absent from those shores which are laved by the
cold currents that descend from the north; while, owing to the influence
of the Gulf Stream, we find many of those lovely and singular creatures
upon our comparatively northern shores. Of late years, as every one
knows, we have all over the land been gathering these marine gems, and
studying their peculiar habits with deep interest in that miniature
ocean the aquarium. In the same parallel on the other side of the
Atlantic none of these little lovers of heat are to be found.
On the other hand, the whale, delighting as it does to lave its huge
warm-blooded body in iced water, is never found to enter the Gulf
Stream. Thus these fish, to some extent, define its position. Other
fish there are which seem to resemble man in their ability to change
their climate at will but, like him also, they are apt in so doing to
lose their health, or, at least, to get somewhat out of condition. Some
kinds of fish, when caught in the waters off Virginia and the Carolinas,
are excellent for the table; but the same species, when taken off the
warm coral banks of the Bahamas, are scarcely worth eating. In fact, we
see no reason for doubting that when these fish find their health giving
way in the warm regions of the south, they seek to reinvigorate
themselves by change of water; and, quitting for a time the beauteous
coral groves, spend a few of the sunnier months of each year in
gambolling in the cool regions of the north, or, what is much the same
thing, in those cool currents that flow from the north in clearly
defined channels.
Besides its other useful and manifold purposes, the Gulf Stream would
seem to be one of the great purveyors of food to the whales.
Sea-nettles, or medusae, are well known to constitute the principal food
of that species of whale which is termed the right whale. Navigators
have frequently observed large quantities of these medusae floating
along with the Gulf Stream; and one sea captain in particular fell in
with an extraordinarily large quantity of them, of a very peculiar
species, off the coast of Florida. As we have said, no whales ever
enter the warm waters of the Gulf Stream; therefore, at that time at
least, the leviathan could not avail himself of this rich provision.
The captain referred to was bound for England. On his return voyage he
fell in with the same mass of medusae off the Western Islands, and was
three or four days in sailing through them. Now, the Western Islands is
a great place of resort for the whale, and thither had the Gulf Stream
been commissioned to convey immense quantities of its peculiar food.
We might enlarge endlessly on this great ocean current, but enough, we
think, has been said to show that the sea, instead of being an ocean of
unchanging drops, driven about at random by the power of stormy winds,
is a mighty flood flowing in an appointed course--steady, regular, and
systematic in its motions, varied and wonderful in its actions, benign
and sweet in its influences, as it sweeps mound and round the world,
fulfilling the will of its great Creator.
CHAPTER FIVE.
THE ATMOSPHERIC OCEAN--ORDER IN ITS FLOW--OFFICES OF THE ATMOSPHERE--
DANGERS LESSENED BY SCIENCE--CURRENTS OF ATMOSPHERE--CAUSE OF WIND--TWO
GREAT CURRENTS--DISTURBING INFLUENCES--CALMS--VARIABLE WINDS--CAUSES
THEREOF--LOCAL CAUSES OF DISTURBANCE--GULF STREAM--INFLUENCE--THE WINDS
MAPPED OUT--A SUPPOSED CASE.
Fish are not the only creatures that live in this ocean. The human
inhabitants of Earth, dwell at the bottom of an ocean of air, which
encircles the globe. Fish, however, have the advantage of us, inasmuch
as they can float and dart about in their ocean, while we, like the
crabs, can only crawl about at the bottom of ours.
This atmospheric ocean is so closely connected with the sea, and
exercises upon it so constant, universal, and important an influence,
that to omit, in a work of this kind, very special reference to the
winds, would be almost as egregious an oversight as to ignore the waves.
Wind, or atmospheric air in motion, is the cause of storms, of waves, of
water-transport through the sky, and of an incalculable amount of varied
phenomena on land and sea. Without this great agent no visible motion
would ever take place in the sea. Its great currents, indeed, might
flow on (though even that is questionable), but its surface would never
present any other aspect than that of an unruffled sheet of clear glass.
The air, then, becomes in this place an appropriate subject of
consideration. The Voice of Ocean has something very emphatic to say
about the atmosphere.
In regard to its nature, it is sufficient to say that atmospheric air is
composed of two gases--oxygen and nitrogen. Like the sea, the
atmosphere is an ocean which flows, not in chaotic confusion, but in
regular, appointed courses; acting in obedience to the fixed, unvarying
laws of the Almighty, and having currents, counter-currents, and eddies
also, just like the watery ocean, which exercise a specific and salutary
influence where they exist.
The offices of the atmosphere are thus quaintly enumerated by Maury:--
"The atmosphere is an envelope or covering for the distribution of light
and heat over the Earth; it is a sewer into which, with every breath we
draw, we cast vast quantities of dead animal matter; it is a laboratory
for purification, in which that matter is recompounded, and wrought
again into wholesome and healthful shapes; it is a machine for pumping
up all the rivers from the sea, and for conveying the water from the
ocean to their sources in the mountains. It is an inexhaustible
magazine, marvellously stored; and upon the proper working of this
machine depends the well-being of every plant and animal that inhabits
the Earth."
An element whose operations are so manifold and so important could not
fail to engage the study of philosophic men in all ages; but so
difficult has been that study that little progress was made until very
recently, when men, acting in unison in all parts of the world, have, by
collating their observations, become acquainted with some of those laws
which govern the atmosphere, and direct its courses and velocities.
In early ages very little indeed was known about the wind beyond the
palpable facts of its existence, its varied condition, and its
tremendous power; and men's observations in regard to it did not extend
much beyond the noting of those peculiar and obvious aspects of the sky
which experience taught them to regard as evidences of approaching
storm. But, although such aspects of the heavens were, and always will
be, pretty safe and correct indicators of the Weather, they are by no
means infallible; and in some regions and under certain conditions they
are wanting altogether.
When the sea captain observes a lowering aspect of the sky, with, it may
be, a dark line above the distant edge of the sea, he knows--however
calm and unruffled may be the ocean around him--that wind may be
expected; and, calling the crew, he orders sail to be taken in, and
preparation made for the approaching breeze. But there are times when
no such warning is given, when the atmospheric is perfectly still, the
sea calm as glass, and the vessel floats motionless with her sails
hanging idly from the yards, as if she were:
A painted ship upon a painted Ocean.
Suddenly, and before preparation can be made to withstand it, the
hurricane bursts in appalling fury over the sea: the sails are blown to
ribbons; the masts, perhaps, broken down; and frequently the vessel
itself overwhelmed and sent to the bottom. Many a gallant ship, which
has left the harbour ably commanded and well manned, and never more been
heard of, has doubtless gone down in sudden storms such as those we have
referred to.
But the inventions of science have now very much lessened the danger of
these storms. The barometer, by the sudden fall of its column of
mercury, tells, as plainly and certainly as if it spoke with an audible
voice, that a storm is approaching, even though all nature should appear
to contradict the fact by its calm and serene aspect; so that the crew
thus warned have time to furl the sails, fasten down the hatches, and
otherwise prepare to face the impending danger.
The atmosphere flows in a grand harmonious system of currents and
counter-currents, with their corresponding eddies, just like the ocean;
and the grand final results of its varied action are to equalise in some
degree the temperatures of the world, to carry off and distribute
moisture where it is required, to sweep away noxious vapours, and
generally to ventilate the Earth and gladden the heart of man.
The primary cause of all wind is the combined action of heat and cold.
If the world were heated with perfect equality all round, there would
be, as far at least as heat is concerned, a perfect and permanent
stagnation of the atmosphere; and this would speedily result in the
destruction of every living thing. But by the varied and beautiful
arrangements which the Almighty has made in nature He has secured a
regular flow of atmospheric currents, which will continue unalterably to
move as long as the present economy of things exists. The intense and
constant action of the sun's rays in the torrid zone produces great
heat, while the less powerful and frequently interrupted influence of
his rays in the frigid zones induces extreme cold. Hence we have in one
region heated air, in another cool air. Now, the effect of heat upon
air is to expand it, make it light, and cause it to rise. The moment it
does so, the cold air rushes in to supply its place; and this rushing in
of the cold air is what we call wind.
It may surprise many people to be told that there are only two great and
never-ceasing courses of the winds of this world--namely, north and
south. They flow perpetually from the equator to the poles, and from
the poles to the equator. All the irregularities and interruptions that
we observe are mere temporary and partial deflections from this grand
course. The heated air at the equator rises continually and flows in an
upper current towards the pole, getting gradually cooled on its way
north. That from the pole flows in an under current towards the
equator, getting gradually heated on its way south. We speak only of
the Northern Hemisphere, for the sake of simplifying explanation,--the
action of the great wind-current in the Southern Hemisphere is precisely
similar.
But our broad simple statement about the upper current from the equator,
and the under current from the pole, requires a slight modification,
which we thought it best not to mingle with the statement itself. The
heated air from the equator does indeed _commence_ to flow in an upper
current, and the cooled air from the pole in an under current; but, as
the upper currents of air are speedily cooled by exposure to space, and
the under currents are heated by contact with the earth's surface, they
constantly change places--the lower current becoming the upper, and
_vice versa_. But they do not change _direction_. The Equatorial
Current ascends, rushes north to a point about latitude 30 degrees,
where, being sufficiently cooled, it swoops down, and continues its
Northward rush along the earth. At another point the Polar Current
quits the earth, and soaring up, in consequence of its recently acquired
heat, becomes the upper current. This change in the two currents takes
place twice in their course.
Of course, the effect of these changes is to produce north winds in one
latitude and south winds in another, according to the particular wind
(equatorial or polar) that happens to be in contact with the earth. At
the points where these two currents cross, in changing places, we
necessarily have calms, or conflicting and variable winds.
Here, then, we have the first of the constant disturbing causes, and of
apparent irregularities, in the winds. The Earth, as every one knows,
whirls rapidly on its axis from west to east. At the equator the whirl
is so rapid that the atmosphere does not at once follow the Earth's
motion. It lags behind, and thus induces an easterly tendency to the
winds, so that a north wind becomes a north-east, and a south wind a
south-east. Here we have another constant cause of variation from the
northerly and southerly flow. We thus account for an easterly tendency
to the winds, but whence their westerly flow? It is simply explained
thus:
The motion of the Earth is greatest at the equator. It diminishes
gradually towards the poles, where there is no motion at all. The
atmosphere partakes of the Earth's motion when in contact with it; and
when thrown upwards by heat, as at the equator, it keeps up the motion
for some time, as it meets with no resistance there. Bearing this in
mind, let us now follow a gush of warm atmosphere from the equator. It
rushes up, and, turning north and south, seeks the poles. We follow the
northern division. When it left the Earth it had acquired a very strong
motion _towards_ the east,--not so great as that of the Earth itself,
but great enough to be equivalent to a furious gale from west to east.
If we suppose this air to redescend whence it rose, it would, on
reaching the equator, find the Earth going too fast for it. It would
lag a little, and become a gentle easterly breeze. But now, throw aside
this supposition;--our breeze rushes north; at latitude 30 degrees it
has got cooled, and swoops down upon the Earth; but the Earth at this
latitude is moving much slower than at the equator; the wind, however,
has lost little or none of its easterly velocity. On reaching the Earth
it rushes east much faster than the Earth itself, and thus becomes a
westerly gale.
There are, however, many other agents at work, which modify and disturb
what we may call the legitimate flow of the wind; and these agents are
diverse in different places, so that the atmosphere is turned out of a
straight course, and is caused to deflect, to halt, and to turn round:
sometimes sweeping low as if in haste; at other times pausing, as if in
uncertainty; and often whirling round, as if in mad confusion. To the
observer, who sees only the partial effects around his own person, all
this commotion seems but the disorderly action of blind chance; but to
the eye of Him who sees the end from the beginning, we may certainly
conclude that naught is seen but order and perfect harmony. And to the
eye of Science there now begins to appear, in what was formerly an
atmospheric chaos, an evidence of design and system, which is not,
indeed, absolutely clear, but which is nevertheless abundantly
perceptible to minds that cannot hope in this life to see otherwise than
"through a glass, darkly."
The causes which modify the action of the winds are, as we have said,
various. Local causes produce local currents. A clear sky in one
region allows the sun's rays to pour upon, let us say, the ocean,
producing great heat; the result of which is evaporation. Aqueous
vapour is very light, therefore it rises; and in doing so the aqueous
particles carry the air up with them, and the wind necessarily rushes in
below to supply its place. The falling of heavy rain, in certain
conditions of the atmosphere, has the effect of raising wind.
Electricity has also, in all probability, something to do with the
creation of motion in the atmosphere. Now, as these are all local
causes, they produce local--or what, in regard to the whole atmosphere,
may be termed irregular--effects. And as these causes or agents are in
ceaseless operation at all times, so their disturbing influence is
endless; and hence the apparent irregularity in the winds.
But these causes are themselves, not less than their results, dependent
on other causes or laws, the workings of which are steady and unvarying;
and the little irregularities that appear to us in the form of
fluctuating and changing winds and calms may be compared to the varying
ripples and shifting eddies of a river, whose surface is affected by the
comparatively trifling influences of wind, rain, and drought, but whose
grand onward course is never for a single moment interrupted.
Among these disturbing influences, the Gulf Stream is a very important
one. It is constantly sending up large volumes of steam, which, rising
into the air, induce a flow of wind from both sides towards its centre.
And many of the storms that arise in other parts of the Atlantic make
for this stream, and follow its course.
So much has been ascertained by scientific investigation of the winds,
that we can now distinctly map out the great belts or currents which
pass right round the world. We can tell in which parallels winds with
easting, and in which those with westing, in them, will be most
frequently found; and by directing our course to such places, we can to
a certain extent count upon profiting by the winds that will be most
suitable. Before the facts of atmospheric circulation were known,
mariners sailed by chance. If they happened to get into the belt of
wind that suited them, their voyages were favourable; if they got into
the wrong region, their voyages were unfavourable,--that was all. But
they had no idea that there was any possibility of turning the tables,
and, by a careful investigation of the works of the Creator, coming at
last to such knowledge as would enable them to reduce winds and waves,
in a great degree, to a state of slavery, instead of themselves being at
their mercy.
The world may be said to be encircled by a succession of belts of wind,
which blow not always in the same direction, but almost invariably with
the same routine of variations. A vessel sailing from north to south
encounters these belts in succession. To mariners of old, these varying
winds seemed to blow in utter confusion. To men of the present time,
their varied action is counted on with some degree of certainty. The
reason why men were so long in discovering the nature of atmospheric
circulation was, that they were not sufficiently alive to the immense
value of united effort. They learned wisdom chiefly from personal
experience--each man for himself; and in the great majority of cases,
stores of knowledge, that would have been of the utmost importance to
mankind, were buried with the individuals who had laid them up.
Moreover, the life of an individual was too short, and his experience
too limited, to enable him to discover any of the grand laws of Nature;
and as there was no gathering together of information from all quarters,
and all sorts of men, and all seasons (as there is now), the knowledge
acquired by individuals was almost always lost to the world. Thus men
were ever learning, but never arriving at a knowledge of the truth.
May we not here remark, that this evil was owing to another evil--
namely, man's ignorance of, or indifference to, the duty of what we may
term human communication? As surely as gravitation is an appointed law
of God, so surely is it an appointed duty that men shall communicate
their individual knowledge to each other, in order that the general
knowledge of the species may advance and just in proportion to the
fidelity with which men obey this duty--the care and ability with which
they collate and systematise and investigate their knowledge--will be
the result of their efforts.
In order to make the above remarks more clear as regards atmospheric
phenomena, let us suppose the case of a sailor who makes the same voyage
every year, but not precisely at the same time each year (and it must be
remembered that the rigid punctuality at starting which now holds good
did not exist in former times). In his first voyage he had to cross,
say, four of the wind-belts. While crossing belt number one, he
experiences south-west winds chiefly, and, being an observant man, notes
the fact. In belt number two he encounters westerly winds. In number
three he is in a region of variable winds and calms. In this region the
winds blow all round the compass, averaging about three months from each
quarter. But our sailor does not know that; he does not stay there all
the year to make notes; he passes on, having recorded his experience.
In crossing belt number four, he finds the prevailing winds to be
easterly.
Next year he sets forth again but merchants are not always punctual.
The lading cannot be completed in time, or adverse winds render the
setting sail unadvisable. At length, after a month or six weeks' delay,
he proceeds on his voyage, and finds belt number one perhaps much the
same as last year. He congratulates himself on his good fortune, and
notes his observations; but in belt number two, the wind is somewhat
modified, owing to its being later in the season,--it is rather against
him. In number three it is right in his teeth, whereas last year it was
quite in his favour. In number four, which we will suppose is the
trade-wind belt (of which more hereafter), he finds the wind still
easterly. Here, then, is the groundwork of confusion in our sailor's
mind. He has not the remotest idea that in belt number one the wind
blows chiefly, but not always, in one particular direction; that in
number four it blows invariably in one way; and that in number three it
is regularly irregular. In fact, he does not know that such belts exist
at all, and his opportunities of observing are not sufficiently frequent
or prolonged to enable him to ascertain anything with certainty.
Now, when we remember that in this imperfect experience of his he is
still further misled by his frequently encountering _local_
vicissitudes--such as storms and calms resulting from local and
temporary causes--we see how confusion becomes worse confounded. No
doubt he does gather some few crumbs of knowledge; but he is called on,
perhaps, to change his scene of action. Another ship is given to him,
another route entered on, and he ceases altogether to prosecute his
inquiries in the old region. Or old age comes on; and even although he
may have been beginning to have a few faint glimmerings as to laws and
systems in his mind, he has not the power to make much of these. He
dies; his knowledge is, to a very large extent, lost, and his log-books
disappear, as all such books do, nobody knows or cares where.
Now this state of things has been changing during the last few years.
Log-books are collected in thousands. The experiences of many men, in
reference to the same spots in the same years, months, and even hours,
are gathered, collated, and compared; and the result is, that although
there are conflicting elements and contradictory appearances, order has
been discovered in the midst of apparent confusion, and scientific men
have been enabled to pierce through the chaos of littlenesses by which
the world's vision has been hitherto obscured, and to lay bare many of
those grand progressions of nature which move unvaryingly with stately
step through space and time, as the river, with all its minor eddies and
counter-currents, flows with unvarying regularity to the ocean.
CHAPTER SIX.
TRADE-WINDS--STORMS--THEIR EFFECTS--MONSOONS--THEIR VALUE--LAND AND SEA
BREEZES--EXPERIMENTS--HURRICANES--THOSE OF 1801--ROTATORY STORMS--THEIR
TERRIBLE EFFECTS--CHINA SEAS--HURRICANE IN 1837--WHIRLWINDS--WEIGHT OF
ATMOSPHERE--VALUE OF ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION--HEIGHT OF ATMOSPHERE.
Before proceeding to speak of the power and the dreadful effects of
wind, it is necessary to say a word or two about the trade-winds.
It is supposed that the "trades" derived their name from the fact of
their being favourable to navigation, and, therefore, to trade. They
consist of two belts of wind, one on each side of the equator, which
blow always in the same direction.
In the last chapter it was explained that the heated atmosphere at the
equator rises, and that the cooler atmosphere from the poles rushes in
to supply its place. That which rushes from the south pole is, of
course, a south wind, that from the north pole a north wind; but, owing
to the Earth's motion on its axis from west to east, the one becomes a
north-east, the other a south-east wind. These are the north-east and
the South-east "trades." They blow regularly--sometimes gently,
sometimes fiercely--all the year round. Between the two is a belt of
calms and changeable breezes, varying from 150 to 500 miles broad--
according to the time of the year--where there are frequent and violent
squalls, of very short duration, accompanied with heavy rains. This
region is called by seamen the "doldrums," and considerable trouble and
difficulty do ships experience in crossing it.
It has already been explained that about latitude 30 degrees, the upper
current of wind from the south descends. At the same point the upper
current from the north also descends. They cut through each other, and
the point where these two cut each other is the northern limit of the
north-east trade-winds. The same explanation holds in regard to the
southern limit of the south-east trades.
In the accompanying diagram the arrows within the circle point out the
direction of the north-east and the south-east "trades" between the
tropics of cancer and capricorn, and also the counter currents to the
north and south of these, while the arrows around the circle show how
counter currents meet and rise, or descend, and produce the calm belts.
We have hitherto enlarged chiefly on the grand currents of the
atmosphere, and on those modifying causes and effects which are
perpetual. Let us now turn to the consideration of those winds which
are produced by local causes, and the effects of which are partial.
And here we are induced to revert to the Gulf Stream, which has been
already referred to as a _local_ disturber of the regular flow of the
atmosphere. This immense body of heated water, passing through cold
regions of the sea, has the effect of causing the most violent storms.
The hurricanes of the West Indies are among the most violent in the
world. We have read of one so violent that it "forced the Gulf Stream
back to its sources, and piled up the water in the Gulf to the height of
thirty feet. A vessel named the _Ledbnry Snow_ attempted to ride it
out. When it abated, she found herself high up on the dry land, having
let go her anchor among the tree-tops of Elliott's quay! The Florida
quays were inundated many feet; and it is said the scene presented in
the Gulf Stream was never surpassed in awful sublimity on the ocean.
The water thus dammed up rushed out with frightful velocity against the
fury of the gale, producing a sea that beggared description."
The monsoons of the Indian Ocean are among the most striking and regular
of the locally-caused winds. Before touching on their causes, let us
glance at their effects. They blow for nearly six months in one
direction, and for the other six in the opposite direction. At the
period of their changing, terrific gales are frequent--gales such as we,
in our temperate regions, never dream of.
What is termed the rainy season in India is the result of the south-west
monsoon, which for four months in the year deluges the regions within
its influence with rain.
The commencement of the south-west monsoon is described as being sublime
and awful beyond description. Before it comes, the whole country is
pining under the influence of long-continued drought and heat; the
ground is parched and rent; scarcely a blade of verdure is to be seen
except in the beds of rivers, where the last pools of water seem about
to evaporate, and leave the land under the dominion of perpetual
sterility. Man and beast pant for fresh air and cool water; but no cool
breeze comes. A blast, as if from the mouth of a furnace, greets the
burning cheek; no blessed drops descend; the sky is clear as a mirror,
without a single cloud to mitigate the intensity of the sun's withering
rays. At last, on some happy morning, small clouds are seen on the
horizon. They may be no bigger than a man's hand, but they are blessed
harbingers of rain. To those who know not what is coming, there seems
at first no improvement on the previous sultry calms. There is a sense
of suffocating heat in the atmosphere; a thin haze creeps over the sky,
but it scarcely affects the broad glare of the sun.
At length the sky begins to change. The horizon becomes black. Great
masses of dark clouds rise out of the sea. Fitful gusts of wind begin
to blow, and as suddenly to cease; and these signs of coming tempest
keep dallying with each other, as if to tantalise the expectant
creation. The lower part of the sky becomes deep red, the gathering
clouds spread over the heavens, and a deep gloom is cast upon the earth
and sea.
And now the storm breaks forth. The violent gusts swell into a
continuous, furious gale. Rain falls, not in drops, but in broad
sheets. The black sea is crested with white foam, which is quickly
swept up and mingled with the waters above; while those below heave up
their billows, and rage and roar in unison with the tempest. On the
land everything seems about to be uprooted and hurled to destruction.
The tall straight cocoa-nut trees are bent over till they almost lie
along the ground; the sand and dry earth are whirled up in eddying
clouds, and everything movable is torn up and swept away.
To add to the dire uproar, thunder now peals from the skies in loud,
continuous roars, and in sharp angry crashes, while lightning plays
about in broad sheets all over the sky, the one following so close on
the other as to give the impression of perpetual flashes and an
unintermitting roar; the whole scene presenting an aspect so awful, that
sinful man might well suppose the season of the Earth's probation had
passed away, and that the Almighty were about to hurl complete
destruction upon his offending creatures.
But far other intentions are in the breast of Him who rides upon the
storm. His object is to restore, not to destroy--to gladden, not to
terrify. This tempestuous weather lasts for some days, but at the end
of that time the change that comes over the face of nature seems little
short of miraculous. In the words of Mr Elphinstone, who describes
from personal observation--"The whole earth is covered with a sudden but
luxuriant verdure, the rivers are full and tranquil, the air is pure and
delicious, and the sky is varied and embellished with clouds.
"The effect of this change is visible on all the animal creation, and
can only be imagined in Europe by supposing the depth of a dreary winter
to start at once into all the freshness and brilliancy of spring. From
that time the rain falls at intervals for about a month, when it comes
on again with great violence; and in July the rains are at their height.
During the third month they rather diminish, but are still heavy. In
September they gradually abate, and are often suspended till near the
end of the month, when they depart amid thunders and tempests, as they
came."
Such are the effects of the monsoons upon land and sea. Of course the
terrific gales that usher them in and out could not be expected to pass
without doing a good deal of damage, especially to shipping. But this
is more than compensated by the facilities which they afford to
navigation.
In many parts of the world, especially in the Indian Ocean, merchants
calculate with certainty on these periodical winds. They despatch their
ships with, say, the north-east monsoon, transact business in distant
lands, and receive them back, laden with foreign produce, by the
south-west monsoon. If there were no monsoons, the voyage from Canton
to England could not be accomplished in nearly so short a time as it is
at present.
And now as to the cause of monsoons. They are, for the most part,
_deflected trade-winds_. And they owe their deflection to the presence
of large continents. If there were no land near the equator, the
trade-winds would always blow in the same manner right round the world;
but the great continents, with their intensely-heated surfaces, cause
local disturbance of the trade-winds. When a trade-wind is turned out
of its course, it is regarded as a monsoon. For instance, the summer
sun, beating on the interior plains of Asia, creates such intense heat
in the atmosphere that it is more than sufficient to neutralise the
forces which cause the trade-winds to blow. They are, accordingly,
arrested and turned back. The great general law of the trades is in
this region temporarily suspended, and the monsoons are created.
It is thus that the heated plains of Africa and Central America produce
the monsoons of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico.
We think it unnecessary to explain minutely the causes that produce
variation in the monsoons. Every intelligent reader will readily
conceive how the change of seasons and varied configuration as well as
unequal arrangement of land and water, will reverse, alter, and modify
the direction and strength of the monsoons.
Land and sea breezes are the next species of wind to which we would
direct attention. They occur in tropical countries, and owe their
existence to the fact that the land is much more easily affected by
sudden changes of temperature than the sea. Thus, the land in warm
regions is much heated by the sun's rays during the day; the atmosphere
over it becomes also heated, in virtue of which it rises: the cool
atmosphere over the sea rushes in to supply its place, and forms the
_sea breeze_: which occurs only during the day.
At night the converse of this takes place. Land heats and cools
rapidly; water heats and cools slowly. After the sun sets, the cooling
of the land goes on faster than that of the sea. In a short time the
atmosphere over the land becomes cooler than that over the sea; it
descends and flows off out to sea; thus forming the _land breeze_. It
occurs only at night, and when the change from one to the other is
taking place there is always a short period of calm. Land and sea
breezes are of the greatest use in refreshing those regions which,
without them, would be almost, if not altogether, uninhabitable.
In "The Tempest," an interesting work on the origin and phenomena of
wind, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, a
curious and simple experiment is described, whereby the existence of
upper and under currents of air and the action of land and sea breezes
may be clearly seen and understood. We quote the passage:--
"The existence of the upper and under currents of air which mark the
phenomena of the trade-winds, and of land and sea breezes, may be
beautifully illustrated in two adjoining rooms, in one of which a good
fire is burning, while in the other there is none. If the door between
the two rooms be thrown open, the cold air will enter the heated room in
a strong current, or, in other words, as a violent wind. At the same
time the heated air of the warm room ascends and passes the contrary way
into the cold room, at the upper part of the same doorway; while in the
middle of this opening, exactly between the two currents, the air
appears to have little or no motion. The best way to show this
experiment is to introduce the flame of a candle into the doorway
between a hot and a cold room. If the flame be held near the bottom of
the doorway, where the air is most dense, it will be strongly drawn
towards the heated room; and if held near the top of the door it will be
drawn towards the cold room with somewhat less force; while midway
between the top and bottom the flame will be scarcely disturbed.
"There is also another pretty experiment which illustrates well the
theory of land and sea breezes. Take a large dish, fill it with cold
water, and in the middle of this put a water-plate or a saucer filled
with warm water. The first will represent the ocean, and the latter an
island made hot by the rays of the sun, and rarefying the air above it.
Take a lighted wax candle and blow it out; and, if the air of the room
be still, on applying it successively to every side of the saucer, the
smoke will be seen moving towards the saucer and rising over it, thus
indicating the course of the air from sea to land. On reversing the
experiment, by filling the saucer with cold water (to represent the
island at night) and the dish with warm water, the land breeze will be
shown by holding the smoking wick over the edge of the saucer; the smoke
will then be wafted to the warmer air over the dish."
We have just tried the first of these experiments, with complete
success. We would, however, recommend a piece of twisted brown paper,
lighted and blown out, instead of a wax candle, because it gives out
more smoke and is probably more obtainable on short notice. The
experiment of the doorway, moreover, does not require that there should
lie two rooms with a door between. We have found that the door of our
study, which opens into a cold passage, serves the purpose admirably.
Were we treating chiefly of the atmosphere in this work, it would be
necessary that we should enlarge on all the varieties of winds, with
their causes, effects, and numerous modifications. But our main subject
is the Ocean. The atmosphere, although it could not with justice have
been altogether passed over, must hold a secondary place here; therefore
we will conclude our remarks on it with a brief reference to hurricanes.
It has been ascertained that most of the great storms that sweep with
devastating fury over the land and sea are not, as was supposed,
rectilinear in their motion, but circular. They are, in fact, enormous
whirlwinds, sometimes upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in
diameter; and they not only whirl round their own centres, but advance
steadily forward through space.
In the year 1831, a memorable and dreadful series of storms passed over
some of the India Islands, and caused terrible havoc, especially in the
island of Barbadoes. The peculiarity of these hurricanes was that they
ravaged the different islands at different dates, and were therefore
supposed to be different storms. Such, however, was not the case. It
was one mighty cyclone, or circular storm,--a gigantic whirlwind,--which
traversed that region at the rate of about sixteen miles an hour. It
was not its progressive, but its rotatory motion, that constituted its
terrible power. On the 10th of August it reached Barbadoes; on the
11th, the islands of Saint Vincent and Saint Lucia; on the 12th it
touched the southern coast of Porto Rico; on the 13th it swept over part
of Cuba; on the 14th it encountered Havanna; on the 17th it reached the
northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico and travelled on to New Orleans,
where it raged till the 18th. It thus, in six days, passed, as a
whirlwind of destruction, over two thousand three hundred miles of land
and sea. It was finally dissipated amid heavy rains.
The effect of a hurricane is well described by Washington Irving.
"About mid-day," he says, "a furious gale sprang up from the east,
driving before it dense volumes of cloud and vapour. Encountering
another tempest from the west, it appeared as if a violent conflict
ensued. The clouds were rent by incessant flashes, or rather streams,
of lightning. At one time they were piled up high in the sky, at
another they descended to the earth, filling the air with a baleful
darkness, more impenetrable than the obscurity of midnight. Wherever
the hurricane passed, whole tracts of forest were shivered and stripped
of their leaves and branches; and trees of gigantic size, which resisted
the blast, were torn up by the roots and hurled to a great distance.
Groves were torn from the mountain-precipices, and vast masses of earth
and rock precipitated into the valleys with terrific noise, choking the
course of the rivers.
"The fearful sounds in the air and on the earth, the pealing thunder,
the vivid lightning, the howling of the wind, the crash of falling trees
and rocks, filled every one with affright, and many thought that the end
of the world was at hand. Some fled to caverns for safety, for their
frail houses were blown down, and the air was filled with the trunks and
branches of trees, and even with fragments of rocks, carried along by
the fury of the tempest. When the hurricane reached the harbour, it
whirled the ships round as they lay at anchor, snapped their cables, and
sunk three of them to the bottom with all who were on board. Others
were driven about, dashed against each other, and tossed mere wrecks
upon the shore by the swelling surges of the sea, which in some places
rolled for three or four miles upon the land. This tempest lasted for
three hours."
The China seas are the most frequently visited by severe tempests, or
typhoons; yet of all vessels, the Chinese junks, as they are called,
seem to be least adapted by their build for encountering such storms.
A terrible hurricane burst upon the China seas in the month of January
1837, as we learn from the "United Service Journal" of that year. An
English vessel was exposed to it. The sea, rising in mountains around
and over the ship's sides, hurled her rapidly on her passage homeward,
when suddenly a wreck was discovered to the westward. The order to
shorten sail was given, and promptly obeyed; and when they neared the
wreck they found her to be a Chinese junk without mast or rudder--a
helpless log on the breast of that boiling sea.
There were many Chinamen on deck vehemently imploring assistance. The
exhibition of their joy on beholding the approach of the stranger was of
the wildest and most extravagant nature; but it was doomed to be
suddenly turned to despair, as the violence of the storm drove the ship
past the wreck. It became necessary to put her on the other tack, a
manoeuvre which the poor creatures construed into abandonment, and the
air rang with the most agonising shrieks of misery. But hope was again
raised, when a boat was lowered and a rope thrown on board for the
purpose of towing the junk to the ship. This intention was frustrated
by the windlass breaking. At sight of this one man, in a paroxysm of
despair, jumped overboard after the rope; but he missed it. Being a
good swimmer, he tried to reach the boat; but his feeble power could
avail him nothing in the midst of such raging elements: he speedily sank
to rise no more.
Another rope, however, was secured to the junk, and by means of it the
rest of the crew (eighteen in number) were saved. Their gratitude was
boundless. They almost worshipped the officers, the crew, and the
vessel, prostrating themselves and kissing the feet of the former, and
the very planks of the latter.
Well-built ships, however, are not always able to withstand the violence
of rotatory storms. Instances occur in which the tightest built and
best manned ships are destroyed as suddenly as the clumsiest of
ill-managed junks. Not many years ago, a vessel was proceeding
prosperously on her voyage, when signs of a coming tempest induced the
wary captain to reduce, and, finally, to take in all sail. But his
precautions were in vain. The storm burst on the devoted ship, and in a
few minutes the masts went over the side, and the hull lay a total wreck
upon the sea.
These hurricanes or cyclones, although in reality whirlwinds, are so
large that man's eye cannot measure them, and it is only by scientific
investigation that we have arrived at the knowledge of the fact. The
whirlwind, properly so called, is a much smaller body of atmosphere.
Sometimes we see miniature whirlwinds, even in our own temperate land,
passing along a road in autumn, lifting the leaves and dust into the air
and carrying them along in the form of a rotatory pillar. In other
regions they exert a power quite equal to the tempest, though in a more
limited space, overturning houses, uprooting trees, cutting a track
twenty or thirty yards wide through the dense forest as thoroughly as if
a thousand woodmen had been at work there for many years.
When whirlwinds pass from the land to the sea they create waterspouts;
of which we shall have something to say in another chapter. Meanwhile,
we think it may be interesting to give the following miscellaneous
information regarding the atmosphere, gathered from the work of Dr
Buist, who devoted much earnest study to the subject of atmospheric
phenomena.
"The weight of the atmosphere is equal to that of a solid globe of lead
sixty miles in diameter. Its principal elements are oxygen and nitrogen
gases, with a vast quantity of water suspended in them in the shape of
vapour; and, commingled with these, a quantity of carbon in the shape of
fixed air, sufficient to restore from its mass many-fold the coal that
now exists in the world. Water is not compressible or elastic; it may
be solidified into ice or vaporised into steam: but the air is elastic
and compressible. It may be condensed to any extent by pressure, or
expanded to an infinite degree of tenuity by pressure being removed from
it. It is not liable to undergo any changes in constitution beyond
these, by any of the ordinary influences by which it is affected."
If the heating and cooling process--which we have described as being
carried on between the equator and the poles--were to cease, we should
have a furious hurricane rushing perpetually round the globe at the rate
of one thousand miles an hour,--ten times the speed of the most violent
tornado that has ever carried devastation over the surface of the earth.
The air, heated and dried as it sweeps over the arid surface of the
soil, drinks up by day myriads of tons of moisture from the sea,--so
much, indeed, that, were none restored to it, the surface of the ocean
would be depressed eight or ten feet annually.
We do not certainly know the height of the atmosphere. It is said that
its upper surface cannot lie nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely
be further off than five hundred, miles. "It surrounds us on all sides,
yet we cannot see it; it presses on us with a weight of fifteen pounds
on every square inch of the surface of our bodies--in other words, we
are at all times sustaining a load of between seventy and one hundred
tons of it on our persons--yet we do not feel it! Softer than the
finest down, more impalpable than the lightest gossamer, it leaves the
cobweb undisturbed, and, at times, scarcely stirs the most delicate
flower that feeds on the dew it supplies; yet it bears the fleets of
nations on its wings round the world, and crushes the most refractory
substances with its weight. It bends the rays of the sun from their
path to give us the aurora of the morning and the twilight of evening.
It disperses and refracts their various tints to beautify the approach
and the retreat of the orb of day. But for the atmosphere, sunshine
would burst on us in a moment and fail us in the twinkling of an eye,
removing us in an instant from midnight darkness to the blaze of noon."
We have written a good deal on this subject, yet the thousandth part has
not been told of even the grand and more obvious operations of the
atmosphere, much less the actions and results of its minor and invisible
processes. Were we to descend with philosophers into the minuter
laboratories of the world, and consider the permeating, ramifying,
subtle part the atmosphere plays in the innumerable transformations that
are perpetually going on around and within us, we should be constrained
to feel more deeply than we have ever yet felt, that the works of the
Creator are indeed wonderful beyond all expression or conception.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
WATERSPOUTS--CAUSES OF--APPEARANCE--ELECTRICITY--EXPERIMENTS--ARTIFICIAL
WATERSPOUTS--SHOWERS OF FISH--MR. ELLIS ON WATERSPOUTS IN THE SOUTH
SEAS.
We turn back now from the atmospheric to the aqueous ocean. Yet so
intimate is the connection between the two, that we shall find it
impossible to avoid occasional reference to the former.
Our present subject, _waterspouts_, obliges us to recur for a little to
the atmosphere, which we dismissed, or attempted to dismiss, in the last
chapter.
There is no doubt that waterspouts are to a great extent, if not
altogether, due to the presence of electricity in the air. When the
clouds have been raging for some time in the skies of tropical regions,
rendering the darkness bright, and the air tremulous with their dread
artillery, they seem to grow unusually thirsty; the ordinary means of
water-supply through the atmosphere do not appear to be sufficient for
the demand, or war-tax in the shape of water-spouts, that is levied on
nature. The clouds therefore descend to the sea, and, putting down
their dark tongues, lick up the water thirstily in the form of
waterspouts.
These whirling pillars of water frequently appear in groups of several
at a time. They are of various heights, sometimes ranging up to seven
hundred yards, with a thickness of fifty yards, and are very dangerous
to ships that happen to come within their influence.
That they are caused by electricity has been proved by experiment--
miniature waterspouts have been produced by artificial means; and as Dr
Bonzano of New York gives particular directions how the thing ought to
be done, we quote his words for the benefit of those who happen to
possess electrical machines.
"From the conductor of an electrical machine suspend, by a wire or
chain, a small metallic ball (one of wood covered with tinfoil); and
under the ball place a rather wide metallic basin, containing some oil
of turpentine, at the distance of about three-quarters of an inch. If
the handle of the machine be now turned slowly, the liquid in the basin
will begin to move in different directions and form whirlpools. As the
electricity on the conductor accumulates, the troubled liquid will
elevate itself in the centre, and at last become attached to the ball.
Draw off the electricity from the conductor, to let the liquid resume
its position; a portion of the turpentine remains attached to the ball.
Turn the handle again very slowly, and observe now the few drops
adhering to the ball assume a conical shape, with the apex downward;
while the liquid under it assumes also a conical shape, the apex upward,
until both meet. As the liquid does not accumulate on the ball, there
must necessarily be as great a current downward as upward, giving the
column of liquid a rapid circular motion, which continues until the
electricity from the conductor is nearly all discharged silently, or
until it is discharged by a spark descending into the liquid. The same
phenomena take place with oil or water. Using the latter liquid, the
ball must be brought much nearer, or a much greater quantity of
electricity is necessary to raise it.
"If, in this experiment, we let the ball swing to and fro, the little
waterspout will travel over its immature sea, carrying its whirlpools
along with it. When it breaks up, a portion of the liquid--and with it
anything it may contain--remains attached to the ball. The fish, seeds,
leaves, etcetera, that have fallen to the earth in rain-squalls, may
have owed their elevation to the clouds to the same cause that attaches
a few drops of the liquid, with its particles of impurities, to the
ball."
There can be no doubt whatever that fish are carried up in waterspouts,
because the descent of those creatures from the skies in rain is a
well-established fact; and if they did not get there in waterspouts--
which, when we consider it, seems most natural--then we are driven to
the conclusion that their native region is the sky, which is by no means
so natural or so probable. Many travellers have recorded the fact that
small fish have descended in rain. In a letter written not long ago by
a gentleman in Singapore we have the following account of a shower of
fish:--
"We experienced a shock of earthquake here on the 16th February last.
Its duration was about two minutes. Although it caused no damage, its
undulatory motion was sufficiently strong to affect certain persons with
a sensation akin to sea-sickness. It was followed by rain in torrents,
on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd. On the latter day especially, we were, for
half an hour, surrounded with water to a considerable depth. We could
not see three yards before us. When the sun came out again, I saw a
number of Malays and Chinese filling their baskets with fish contained
in the pools formed by the rain.
"They told me the fish had `fallen from heaven,' and three days later,
when the pools were all dried up, there were still many dead fish lying
about. As they lay in my court-yard, which is surrounded by a wall,
they could not have been brought in by the overflowing of a torrent;
indeed, there is none of any considerable size in the neighbourhood.
"The space covered by these fish might be about fifty acres, comprising
the eastern part of the town. They were very lively, and seemed to be
in good health."
The writer of the above suggests, with some degree of hesitation, that
these fish were sucked up by waterspouts. We think that there need be
no hesitation in the matter!
The appearance usually presented by a waterspout is that of a column of
aqueous vapour reaching from the sea to the clouds, sometimes straight,
more frequently a little bent, and thicker above and below than in the
centre of the column.
Mr Ellis, the missionary, in his "Polynesian Researches," mentions
having, with a companion, met and narrowly escaped being overwhelmed by
several waterspouts, when passing on one occasion in an open boat
between two islands about thirty miles apart. On the passage they were
overtaken by a sudden and violent squall, which lasted several hours;
and, in order to avoid being sunk, they tied their masts, oars, and
sails in a bundle, and attaching a rope to them, and to the boat, cast
them into the sea. Thus they lay, as it were, at anchor in the lee of
this extemporised breakwater. It was but a feeble barrier, however,
against so wild a storm, and the native boatmen were so overcome by
fear, that they sat down in the bottom of the boat, and covered their
eyes with their hands.
After a time the rain diminished, the sky began to clear, and the boat's
crew to revive, when suddenly one of the men uttered a cry of
consternation, and pointed to an object towards which all eyes were
instantly turned. They beheld a large cylindrical waterspout,
extending, like a massive column, from the ocean to the dark and
impending clouds. It was not far distant, and seemed to move slowly
towards the boat.
Had Mr Ellis had any doubt as to the danger of a waterspout, the
extreme terror exhibited by the natives on this occasion must have
removed it; for it was not probable that, just after escaping from the
most imminent peril, they would fail back into a much more violent state
of terror, unless former experience had given them too good reason to
dread the presence of the object they now saw before them.
The roughness of the sea forbade their attempting to hoist a sail in
order to avoid the waterspout. They were compelled, therefore, to
summon all the resolution they possessed, to enable them calmly to await
its approach, and put their trust in the arm of Jehovah.
The helm was in the hands of a seaman whose steadiness could be depended
on. The natives were down in the bottom of the boat; they had given way
to despair.
Two other waterspouts now came into view, and subsequently a third, if
not more, so that they felt as if completely surrounded by them. Some
were well defined, extending in an unbroken line from the sea to the
sky, like pillars resting on the ocean as their basis, and supporting
the clouds; others, assuming the shape of a funnel or inverted cone
attached to the clouds, extended their sharp points to the ocean below.
From the distinctness with which they were seen, it was judged that the
furthest could not have been many miles distant. In some they imagined
they could trace the spiral motion of the water as it was drawn up to
the clouds, which were every moment being augmented in their portentous
darkness. The sense of personal danger, Mr Ellis confesses, and the
certainty of instant destruction if brought within their vortex,
prevented a very careful observation of their appearance and
accompanying phenomena.
The storm continued all day, and at intervals the party in the boat
beheld, through the driving clouds and rain, one or other of those
towering waterspouts; which, however, did not come nearer to them.
It is interesting to read the record left by a Christian missionary of
his conflicting feelings on that terrible occasion. Mr Ellis believed
that all hope of escape was over, and his mind went through that ordeal
which must be the experience of every one who sees the steady approach
of speedy death. He says that during those hours when he sat awaiting
his doom, the thought of death itself did not make a deep impression.
"The struggle, the gasp, as the wearied arm should attempt to resist the
impetuous waves; the straining vision, that should linger on the last
ray of retiring light, as the deepening veil of water would gradually
conceal it for ever; and the rolling billows heaving over the sinking
and dying body, which, perhaps ere life should be extinct, might become
the prey of voracious inhabitants of the deep;"--these things caused
scarcely a thought, compared with the immediate prospect of the
disembodied spirit being ushered into the presence of its Maker; the
account to be rendered, and the awful and unalterable destiny that would
await it there. "These momentous objects," he says, "absorbed all the
powers of the mind, and produced an intensity of feeling, which, for a
long time, rendered me almost insensible to the storm, or the liquid
columns which threatened our destruction."
It was now that the missionary could look back with deepest gratitude
upon that mercy which had first brought him to a knowledge of the
Saviour. "Him and Him alone," he adds, "I found to be a refuge, a rock
in the storm of contending feelings, on which my soul could cast the
anchor of its hope for pardon and acceptance before God... I could not
but think how awful would have been my state, had I in that hour been
ignorant of Christ, or had I neglected or despised the offers of his
mercy. Our prayers were offered to Him who is a present help in every
time of danger, for ourselves and those who sailed with us; and under
these and similar exercises several hours passed away."
Those prayers were answered, for the waterspouts gradually disappeared,
and the boat got safe to land.
In speaking of another waterspout, seen on a subsequent voyage, Mr
Ellis tells us that it was well defined,--an unbroken column from the
sea to the clouds, which on this occasion were neither dense nor
lowering. Around the outside of the liquid cylinder was a kind of thick
mist; and within, a substance resembling steam, ascending apparently
with a spiral motion. The water at its base was considerably agitated
with a whirling motion; while the spray which was thrown off from the
circle formed by the lower part of the column, rose several feet above
the level of the sea. It passed about a mile astern of the ship.
Occasionally, when passing nearer to a ship than was deemed safe, a
waterspout has been dissipated by a cannon-shot, as represented in our
engraving.
Such are the usual appearances and actions of waterspouts. They are
not, however, properly named, being simply whirlwinds at sea, instead of
whirlwinds on land. Professor Oersted suggests the name "storm-pillar,"
as being a more appropriate term.
It does not follow that a large ship would inevitably be destroyed if
brought within the vortex of a waterspout; but it is certain that she
would run the risk of being dismasted, and perhaps thrown on her
beam-ends. Navigators have not had sufficient experience of the power
of waterspouts to pronounce authoritatively on that point,--and it is to
be hoped they never will.
Captain Beechy, in his narrative of a voyage to the Pacific, describes
one into which his ship actually entered, and from which he received
extremely rough handling before he was set free. But this might not
have been a very large waterspout; and it is not absolutely certain
whether he was quite within its vortex, or was merely brushed by the
skirts of its outer garment.
Certain it is that waterspouts vary in size and in power; for we read of
them passing from the sea to the land, and there rooting up trees,
unroofing and overturning houses, dismounting cannon, emptying fish
ponds, half emptying harbours, and otherwise exhibiting a degree of
force that would undoubtedly sink the largest vessel that ever was
built, if brought thoroughly to bear upon it.
The rate of motion in waterspouts varies. Sometimes they revolve
slowly, sometimes with the utmost rapidity. They often produce violent
noise, as, indeed, might be expected; and they are generally accompanied
by thunder and lightning, though not invariably so, for they are
sometimes observed when the heavens are clear and the sea calm.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE ARCTIC SEAS--THEIR CHARACTER, SCENERY, AND ATMOSPHERICAL ILLUSIONS.
There is a tendency on the part of most writers on the subject of Polar
Regions--especially compilers--to dwell disproportionately on the gloomy
side of the picture; insomuch that readers are led, not to over-estimate
the grand and the terrible aspects of the polar oceans, but to
under-estimate the sweet and the beautiful influences that at certain
periods reign there.
We quarrel not with authors for dwelling on the tremendous and the
awful. Too much cannot be said on these points; but while they do not
by any means paint the dark side of their picture too black, they fail
to touch in the lights with sufficient brilliancy. We have had some
personal experience of the arctic regions, and have found it extremely
difficult to get many persons--even educated men and women--to
understand that there _is_ a summer there, though a short one; that in
many places it is an uncommonly hot and excessively brilliant summer;
and that the sun, as if to make amends for its prolonged absence in
winter, shines all night as well as all day, blazing on the crystal
icebergs and pure snow (which _never_ disappear from those seas) with a
degree of splendour that renders the far north transcendently beautiful
and pre-eminently attractive.
We admit freely that the prevailing character of arctic seas, during the
greater part of the year, is dark, gloomy, forbidding. But this is the
very reason why their brief but cheering smiles should be brought
prominently into the foreground, and, if they cannot in justice be dwelt
on long, at least be touched upon with emphasis.
Why, in some of our cyclopaedia accounts of the realms of "thick-ribbed
ice," so much prominence is given to "the horrors and wide desolation of
the scene," and so much graphic power is expended in working up the
reader's imagination to a conception of the dreadful dangers and the
appalling terrors that await the madman who should dare to venture
within the arctic circle, that persons who have not been there might
well be tempted to shrink in affright from the very contemplation of a
region in which there does not appear to be one redeeming quality.
We repeat, that we do not think the one side of the picture has been too
darkly painted,--but the other side has been painted too slightly.
At the same time, we would caution our readers against jumping to the
opposite extreme. The dark side of the picture is in reality out of all
proportion to the light. And we do not hesitate to state our confirmed
opinion, that the arctic regions are more interesting to read about than
pleasant to dwell in.
Having, then, defended the lights, let us commence our investigations
with the shadows.
Those oceans lying within the arctic circle exhibit phenomena so grand,
so wonderful, and so varied, that they claim distinct and separate
treatment from the ocean as a whole. Here the extreme cold acts with
such power, and produces such extraordinary results, that it is
difficult to find words or similes by which to convey a just conception
of nature's aspects to the general reader.
During nearly two-thirds of the year the arctic regions are under the
absolute dominion of winter; and for many weeks of that bitter season
they are shrouded with the mantle of a dark, sunless night. The entire
ocean is locked in the embrace of a covering of ice many feet thick, so
that its liquid aspect is thoroughly removed; and, owing to ice-masses
scattered over its surface, together with mounds of drifted snow, it
bears a much stronger resemblance to the land than to the sea. Gales of
wind sometimes sweep over those frozen plains in bitter fury, hurling
the snow into the air in vast eddying masses, and threatening
destruction to any living creature that may chance to be exposed to
them--not so much from their violence, however, as from the intense cold
of the atmosphere which is put in motion. But in regard to gales,
although there are no lack of them, they are neither so fierce nor so
frequent as are those of the torrid zone.
It might be supposed that in such a climate animal life could scarcely
exist; but such is not the case. The inhabitants of part of the arctic
regions, named Esquimaux (more correctly Eskimos, with the accent on the
last syllable), are a stout, hardy, healthy race and the polar bears,
foxes, wolves, seals, musk-oxen, walruses, etcetera, that dwell there,
seem to enjoy their existence just as much as do the animals of more
favoured and warmer climes.
During the short but hot summer of the arctic regions, the immense
masses of ice formed in winter are by no means cleared away. A great
part of the heat of early summer (there is no season there that merits
the name of spring) is spent in breaking up the solid crust of ice on
the sea, a large proportion of which is carried south by the currents
that flow to the equator, and melted long before they reach the
temperate zones. But a considerable quantity of broken ice-masses get
locked in narrow places or stranded on shallows; and although they
undergo the process of melting the whole summer, they are not much
diminished ere the returning frost stops the process and locks them in
the new ice of a succeeding winter.
Thus there is no period of the year in which large quantities of ice may
not be seen floating about in the arctic seas.
This fact it is that enables us to speak appropriately of the _scenery_
of the Arctic Ocean. And assuredly this scenery of the ice is
exceedingly and strikingly beautiful. The imagination cannot conceive
the dazzling effect of a bright summer day in those regions, when the
ocean is clear as glass, and ice-humps and ice-mountains of every shape
and size are glittering in the sun's rays with intense brilliancy, while
the delicate whiteness of these floating islands, and the magical
atmospheric illusions by which they are frequently surrounded, render
the scene pre-eminently fairy-like.
All the navigators who have penetrated into the arctic seas speak with
enthusiasm of the splendour of floating ice-masses. They take the most
curious and fantastic shapes; sometimes appearing like great cities of
white marble, with domes and towers and spires in profusion; sometimes
looming huge and grand like fortresses, and many of them with their
summits overhanging so much as to suggest the idea that they are about
to fall. This indeed, they often do, adding to the grandeur of the
scene, and not a little to the danger, should ships chance to be in the
neighbourhood.
The atmospheric illusions, before mentioned, are the result of different
temperatures existing within a few miles of each other, and which are
caused by the presence of large bodies of ice. The effect of this is to
cause the ice-masses on the horizon to appear as if floating in the air,
and to distort them into all sorts of shapes, even turning them upside
down, and thus affording to an innovative mind a most ample and
attractive field wherein to expatiate.
To ascertain the causes of facts and effects so curious must be
interesting to all who have inquiring minds. We will, therefore,
attempt to describe and account for arctic phenomena in the following
chapters as simply as may be.
CHAPTER NINE.
FORMATION OF ICE--DANGERS OF DISRUPTING ICE--ANECDOTE--DRIFTING ICE--
DRIFT OF THE "FOX"--"NIPPING" ANECDOTE--LOSS OF THE "BREADALBANE."
It is well known that when fresh water becomes so cold that its
temperature is 32 degrees of Fahrenheit's scale, it loses its liquid
form and becomes ice. A somewhat lower temperature than this is
necessary to freeze salt water; the reason being, that greater force is
required to expel the salt which the sea holds in solution,--which salt
is always more or less expelled in the process of freezing.
Ice commences to form in the shape of needles, which shoot out at angles
from each other. In smooth water, under the influence of intense cold,
the process is rapid, and a thin cake soon covers the water, and
increases in thickness hour by hour. But when the sea is agitated the
process is retarded, and the fine needles are broken up into what arctic
navigators call _sludge_. This, however, soon begins to cake, and is
broken by the swell into small cakes; which, as they thicken, again
unite, and are again broken up into larger masses. These masses, by
rubbing against each other, have their edges slightly rounded up, and in
this form receive the name of _pancake_ ice.
When a quantity of ice covers the ocean in a wide level sheet of
considerable extent, it is called an _ice-field_. Fields of this kind
are often seen by navigators hundreds of miles in extent, and nearly
thirty feet thick. Ice of such thickness, however, only shows five or
six feet above water. When fields are broken by heavy ocean-swells, the
edges are violently forced up, and fall in debris on the surface; thus
_hummocks_ or mounds are formed.
When field-ice breaks up under the influence of an ocean-swell, caused
by a storm, the results are terrific.
An exceedingly graphic account of an incident of this kind is given by
Dr Brown, in his "History of the Propagation of Christianity." He
writes:--
"The missionaries met a sledge with Esquimaux, turning in from the sea,
who threw out some hints that it might be as well for them to return.
After some time, their own Esquimaux hinted that there was a
ground-swell under the ice. It was then scarcely perceptible, except on
lying down and applying the ear close to the ice, when a hollow,
disagreeable, grating sound was heard ascending from the abyss. As the
motion of the sea under the ice had grown more perceptible, they became
alarmed, and began to think it prudent to keep close to the shore. The
ice also had fissures in many places, some of which formed chasms of one
or two feet; but as these are not uncommon in ice even in its best
state, and the dogs easily leap over them, they are frightful only to
strangers.
"As the wind rose to a storm, the swell had now increased so much that
its effects on the ice were extraordinary, and really alarming. The
sledges, instead of gliding smoothly along as on an even surface,
sometimes ran with violence after the dogs, and sometimes seemed with
difficulty to ascend a rising hill. Noises, too, like the report of
cannon, were now distinctly heard in many directions, from the bursting
of the ice at a distance. Alarmed at these frightful phenomena, our
travellers drove with all haste towards the shore; and, as they
approached it, the prospect before them was tremendous. The ice having
burst loose from the rocks, was tossed to and fro, and broken in a
thousand pieces against the precipices with a dreadful noise; which,
added to the raging of the sea, the roaring of the wind, and the driving
of the snow, so overpowered them as almost completely to deprive them of
the use of their eyes and ears.
"To make the land was now the only resource that remained, but it was
with the utmost difficulty that the frightened dogs could be driven
forward; and as the whole body of the ice frequently sank below the
summits of the rocks, and then rose above them, the only time for
landing was the moment it gained the level of the coast--a circumstance
which rendered the attempt extremely nice and hazardous.
"Both sledges, however, succeeded in gaining the shore, and were drawn
up off the beach, though not without great difficulty. Scarcely had
they reached it, when that part of the ice from which they had just
escaped burst asunder, and the water, rushing up from beneath, instantly
precipitated it into the ocean. In a moment, as if by a signal, the
whole mass of ice for several miles along the coast, and extending as
far as the eye could reach, began to break up, and to be overwhelmed by
the waves. The spectacle was awfully grand. The immense fields of ice
rising out of the ocean clashing against each other, and then plunging
into the deep with a violence which no language can describe, and with a
noise like the discharge of a thousand cannon, was a sight which must
have filled the most unreflecting mind with feelings of solemnity.
"The Brethren were overwhelmed with amazement at their miraculous
escape, and even the Esquimaux expressed gratitude to God for their
deliverance."
Such is the terrible aspect in which field-ice is seen when broken up
and converted into smaller masses or _floes_. When these lie closely
together the mass is called _pack-ice_; in which shape it usually drifts
away with the southern currents, and, separating as it travels south, is
met with in loose floating masses, of every fantastic form. There is
always, as we have said, a large quantity of floe and pack-ice in the
polar seas, which becomes incorporated with the new ice of the
succeeding winter; and not infrequently whale and discovery ships get
frozen into the pack, and remain there as firmly embedded as if they lay
high and dry on land. When the pack is thus re-frozen, it usually
remains stationary; but there are occasions and circumstances in which
the entire body of a pack drifts slowly southward even during the whole
year; showing clearly that oceanic circulation is by no means arrested
by the icy hand of the hyperborean winter.
A very remarkable drift of this kind is recorded by Captain McClintock
of the _Fox_, which is worthy of being noticed here, as illustrative of
the subject we are now considering and also as showing in a remarkable
manner the awful dangers to which navigators may be exposed by the
disruption of the pack in spring, and the wonderful, almost miraculous,
manner in which they are delivered from imminent destruction.
In attempting to cross Baffin's Bay, by penetrating what is called the
"middle ice," the _Fox_ was beset, and finally frozen in for the winter;
and here, although their voyage may be said to have just commenced, they
were destined to spend many months in helpless inactivity and
comparative peril and privation. Their little vessel lay in the centre
of a field of ice of immense extent; so large, indeed, that they could
not venture to undertake a journey to ascertain its limits. Yet this
field slowly and steadily descended Baffin's Bay during the whole
winter, and passed over no fewer than 1385 statute miles in the space of
242 days, during which period the _Fox_ was firmly embedded in it!
It is with difficulty the mind can form any adequate conception of the
position of those voyagers;--unable to move from their icy bed, yet
constantly drifting over miles and miles of ocean; uncertain as to the
where or the when of their deliverance from the pack; exposed to the
terrible dangers of disrupting ice, and surrounded by the depressing
gloom of the long arctic night.
At length deliverance came; but it came surrounded by terrors. In
February, McClintock writes thus: "Daylight reveals to us evidences of
vast ice-movements having taken place during the dark months, when we
fancied all was still and quiet; and we now see how greatly we have been
favoured, what innumerable chances of destruction we have unconsciously
escaped. A few days ago, the ice suddenly cracked within ten yards of
the ship, and gave her such a smart shock that every one rushed on deck
with astonishing alacrity. One of these sudden disruptions occurred
between me and the ship, when I was returning from the iceberg. The sun
was just setting as I found myself cut off... At length I reached a
place where the jagged edges of the floes met; so crossed, and got
safely on board."
Again, in March, he says, "Last night the ice closed, shutting up our
lane; but its opposite sides continued for several hours to move vast
each other, rubbing off all projections, crushing and forcing out of the
water masses four feet thick. Although one hundred and twenty yards
distant, this pressure shook the ship and cracked the intervening ice."
Soon after that, a heavy gale burst upon them from the south-east,
encircling them with snow-drift so dense that they could neither hear
nor see what was going on twenty yards off. At night the ship became
suddenly detached from her wintry bed, and heeled over to the storm,
inducing them to believe that the whole pack had been broken in, and was
pressing against them. This was not the case. A large mass of ice had
protected them; but at a distance of about fifty yards, ice of four and
a half feet thick had been crushed to atoms. Soon after, the protecting
mass yielded, and the _Fox_ received a nip which lifted her stern about
a foot, while occasional groaning from her sturdy little hull replied to
the wild surgings of the ice without.
But all this was as nothing compared with the scene of desperate turmoil
and confusion which took place when the ice finally broke up, and a gale
raised a fearful swell; so that the _Fox_ found herself surrounded by
huge masses, which tossed and ground against each other furiously, and
any two of which pieces could have crushed in her sides as if she had
been made of walnut shell. Gradually the pack opened out, and the
vessel, by aid of wind and steam, was mercifully delivered from her
dangerous position.
Before passing from the subject of risk to navigators to the
consideration of other forms and aspects of polar ice, let us take a
glance at an effectual case of nipping. There have been many partial
and severe nips, the descriptions of which are all more or less graphic;
but few ships have come so suddenly to the end of their career as did
the _Breadalbane_, a small vessel that was used as a transport ship to
the expedition in search of Sir John Franklin in 1852. One who was on
board when it occurred thus describes it:--
_Sunday, August 21st_.--About ten minutes past four, the ice passing the
ship awoke me, and the door of my cabin, from the pressure, opened. I
hurriedly put on my clothes, and on getting on deck found some hands on
the ice endeavouring to save the boats; but the latter were instantly
crushed to pieces. They little thought, when using their efforts to
save the boats, that the ship was in so perilous a situation.
I went forward to hail the _Phoenix_ (another ship that was fortunately
near) for men to save the boats; and whilst doing so, the ropes by which
we were secured parted, and a heavy nip took us, making every timber
creak, and the ship tremble all over. I looked in the main hold, and
saw the beams giving way. I hailed those on the ice, and told them of
our critical situation, they not for one moment suspecting it. I then
rushed to my cabin, hauled out my portmanteau on deck, and roared like a
bull to those in their beds to jump out and save their lives. The
startling effect on them might be more easily imagined than described.
On reaching the deck, those on the ice called out to me to jump over the
side, that the ship was going over. I left my portmanteau, and jumped
over the side on the loose ice, and with difficulty, and with the
assistance of those on the ice, succeeded in getting on the unbroken
part, with the loss of the slippers I had on when quitting the vessel,
with wet feet, etcetera. The cold was little thought of at the exciting
moment--life, not property, being the object to be saved.
"After being on the ice about five minutes, the timbers, etcetera, in
the ship cracking up as matches would in the hand, it eased for a short
time; and I, with some others, returned to the ship, with the view of
saving some of our effects.
"Captain Inglefield now came running towards the ship, and ordered me to
see if the ice was through it. On looking down into the hold, I saw all
the beams, etcetera, falling about in a manner that would have been
certain death to me had I ventured down there. But there was no
occasion for that (I mean to ascertain the fact of the ice being
through), it being too evident that the ship could not last many
minutes. I then sounded the well, and found five feet in the hold; and,
whilst in the act of sounding, a heavier nip than before pressed out the
starboard bow, and the ice was forced right into the forecastle. Every
one then abandoned the ship, with what few clothes they saved--some with
only what they had on. The ship now began to sink fast, and from the
time her bowsprit touched the ice until her mast-heads were out of
sight, did not occupy above one minute and a half!
"It was a very sad and unceremonious way of being turned out of our
ship. From the time the first nip took her, until her disappearance,
did not occupy more than fifteen minutes."
Such is the account of the fate of the _Breadalbane_. While we read it,
we cannot help feeling that many arctic ships must have perished in a
similar manner. It is wonderful, nevertheless, how many of those that
dare the dangers of the ice survive the conflict. Undoubtedly this is
owing, to a large extent, to the fact that ships' bottoms are rounded;
so that when a severe nip takes place, there is a tendency in the ice to
slip under their rounded bottoms, and squeeze the vessels up out of the
water. Were it not for this, few ships that have gone to those seas
would ever have returned.
A catastrophe such as that which befell the _Breadalbane_ shows the
immense power of field-ice. Hundreds of somewhat similar incidents
might be cited to illustrate this power; but we content ourselves with
the selection of one instance, which exhibits it in a remarkable manner,
and at the same time shows the way in which heavy vessels are sometimes
forced out of the water.
In the year 1836, Captain Back commanded the _Terror_, which was sent
out to make geographical discoveries in the polar regions, and spent the
winter of that year in the ice. Few ships have undergone severer tests
than did the _Terror_ on that voyage. The severest treatment she
experienced was in the spring, when the disruption of the winter ice
began to take place. The evening of the 7th of March was specially
fraught with danger. We quote the gallant commander's graphic
account:--
"Ominous rushing sounds were heard far off to the north-east and
north-west. These gradually drew nearer as the flood made its way,
either under the compact bodies that withstood the shock, or along the
cracks and openings--gaining in these latter a furious velocity, to
which everything seemed to yield.
"It happened that there were several of these around the ship; and when
they opened on us like so many conduits pouring their contents to a
common centre, the concussion was absolutely appalling, rending the
lining and bulkheads in every part, loosening some shores and
stanchions, so that the slightest effort would have thrown them down,
and compressing others with such force as to make the turpentine ooze
out of their extremities. One fir plank, placed horizontally between
the beams and the shores actually glittered with globules. At the same
time the pressure was going on from the larboard side, where the three
heaviest parts of the ruin of the floe remained, cracked here and there,
but yet adhering in firm and solid bodies. These, of course, were
irresistible; and after much groaning, splitting, and cracking,
accompanied by sounds like the explosion of cannon, the ship rose fore
and aft, and heeled over about ten degrees to starboard."
Again, on the 11th, Back says: "At this time she showed symptoms of
suffering in the hull, which was evidently undergoing a severe ordeal.
Inexplicable noises, in which the sharp sounds of splitting and the
harsher ones of grinding were most distinct, came in quick succession,
and then again stopped suddenly, leaving all so still that not even a
breath was heard.
"In an instant the ship was felt to rise under our feet, and the roaring
and rushing commenced with a deafening din alongside, abeam and astern,
at one and the same instant. Alongside, the grinding masses held the
ship tight as in a vice; while the overwhelming pressure of the entire
body, advancing from the west, so wedged the stern and starboard
quarter, that the greatest apprehensions were entertained for the
stern-post and framework abaft.
"Some idea of the power exerted on this occasion may be gathered from
this:--At the moment which I am now describing, the fore-part of the
ship was literally buried as high as the flukes of the anchors in a dock
of perpendicular walls of ice; so that, in that part, she might well
have been thought immovable. Still, such was the force applied to her
abaft, that after much cracking and perceptible yielding of the beams,
which seemed to curve upwards, she actually rose by sheer pressure above
the dock forward; and then, with sudden jerks, did the same abaft.
During these convulsions, many of the carpenters and others stationed
below were violently thrown down on the deck, as people are in an
earthquake. It was a moment of intense suspense.
"On the 16th, another rush drove irresistibly on the larboard quarter
and stern, and forcing the ship ahead, raised her on the ice. A chaotic
ruin followed... The ship was careened fully four streaks, and sprang a
leak as before. Scarcely were ten minutes left us for the expression of
our astonishment that anything of human build could outlive such
assaults, when another equally violent rush succeeded; and in its way
toward the starboard quarter threw up a rolling wave thirty feet high,
crowned by a blue square mass of many tons, resembling the entire side
of a house, which, after hanging for some time in doubtful poise on the
ridge, at length fell with a crash into the hollow, in which, as in a
cavern, the after-part of the ship seemed embedded. It was, indeed, an
awful crisis, rendered more frightful from the mistiness of the night
and dimness of the moon.
"The poor ship cracked and trembled violently, and no one could say that
the next minute would not be her last--and, indeed, his own too, for
with her our means of safety would probably perish."
It is unnecessary to give additional instances of this kind, in order to
show the terrible power of field-ice. Indeed, it requires little in the
way of illumination to prove that masses of solid matter, many thousands
of tons in weight, can, when in motion, utterly destroy the most
powerful engines of human construction.
We shall now turn our attention to another, and a very prominent form,
in which arctic ice presents itself--namely, that of icebergs.
CHAPTER TEN.
ICEBERGS--THEIR APPEARANCE AND FORMS--THEIR CAUSE--GLACIERS--THEIR
NATURE AND ORIGIN--ANECDOTE OF SCORESBY--RISK AMONG ICEBERGS--MCCLURE'S
EXPERIENCE.
There are not only ice-fields, ice-floes, etcetera, in the polar seas,
but there are ice-mountains, or bergs.
It was long a matter of uncertainty as to where and how those immense
mountains, that are met with occasionally at sea, were formed. We are
now in a position to tell definitely where they originate, and how they
are produced. They are not masses of frozen sea water. Their
birth-place is in the valleys of the far north, and they are formed by
the accumulation of the snows and ice of ages. This is a somewhat
general way of stating the matter; but our subsequent explanations will,
we trust, make our meaning abundantly clear.
Icebergs are found floating in great numbers in the arctic seas. They
drift southward each spring with the general body of polar ice, and
frequently travel pretty far south in the Atlantic before the heat of
the water and atmosphere united accomplishes their dissolution. They
sometimes travel as far south as Florida with the southerly current that
flows along that coast; but the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, together
with its northerly flow, form an impassable barrier between these
ice-mountains and Europe.
Icebergs assume every variety of form, and almost every size. They
sometimes resemble castles, sometimes churches with glittering spires,
and sometimes the peaked and jagged mountains of Norway. They are also
frequently seen in the form of immense misshapen and top-heavy masses.
In size they vary from one hundred to seven or eight hundred feet in
height. One iceberg, seen by Ross in Baffin's Bay, was above two miles
in length, nearly the same in width, and fifty feet high. But in
stating this, we have not given the reader any idea of its vast
proportions; for it is well known that all icebergs, or masses of ice,
have a much greater proportion of their bulk under than above water--in
other words, they sink very deep. The relative proportion that sinks
depends on the nature of the ice. Of some kinds, there is usually ten
times as much below as there is above water; of other kinds, there may
be eight or five parts below. In all cases there is much more below
than above so that a mountain of a hundred feet high--if afloat--may be
safely calculated to be a mass of ice not far short of a thousand feet
thick.
As these bergs float southward with the currents, they melt very
rapidly. The heat of the sun and the action of the waves gradually
round off the sharp angles and topple down the spires that characterised
them in the land of their birth. The process of dissolution, too, is
carried on internally; for rain and melted water on the surface
percolates through the mass, rendering it porous. As the waves cut away
the base, the centre of gravity is thrown out, and the whole berg turns
over with a terrible crash. Sometimes loud reports like cannon-shots
are heard, and the huge mountain splits asunder; while, not
unfrequently, the whole berg falls into a heap of chaotic ruins, and
floats away in a mass of smaller pieces which disappear gradually in
their parent sea.
The formation of icebergs has, as we have said, puzzled mankind for many
years. Their existence has long been known: for, even before men dared
to venture their lives in the polar regions, navigators, in crossing the
Atlantic Ocean, frequently met with these marble-like mountains; and,
what is worse, sometimes ran at full speed against them, and were sunk
with all on board. Bergs are frequently enveloped in dense fogs, caused
by the cold atmosphere by which they are surrounded condensing the
moisture of the warmer atmosphere which they encounter on their voyage
southward; hence they are exceedingly dangerous to navigation. But now
to speak of their formation.
Many of the great valleys of the far north are completely filled up with
solid ice. Observe, we do not say that they are merely covered over
with ice; they are absolutely filled up with it from top to bottom.
Those ice-masses are known by the name of glaciers; and they are found
in most of the elevated regions of the Earth,--on the Alps and the
mountains of Norway, for instance,--but they exist in greater abundance
about the poles than elsewhere.
Glaciers _never_ melt. They have existed for unknown ages, probably
since the world began; and they will, in all likelihood, continue to
exist until the world comes to an end,--at least until the present
economy of the world terminates. They began with the first fall of
snow, and as falls of snow during the long winters of the polar regions
are frequent and heavy, the accumulated masses are many feet deep,
especially in places where drifts are gathered--sometimes fifteen,
twenty, thirty, and even forty feet deep. The summer sun could not melt
such drifts entirely. New snow was added each winter, until the valleys
of the far north were filled up; and so they remain filled up to this
day.
In order to understand the nature of glaciers clearly, let us turn back
to those remote ages that rolled over this Earth long before man was
created. Let us in spirit leap back to the time when no living creature
existed, even before the great mastodon began to leave his huge
foot-prints on the sands of time.
We have reached one of the large valleys of the arctic regions. It is
solemn, grand, and still. No merry birds, no prowling creatures, are
there to disturb the universal calm. The Creator has not yet formed the
living creatures and pronounced them "very good." It is the world's
first winter. As we look upward to the sky, we observe the first white
snow-flakes falling gently to the ground. They reach it, and, for the
first time, that valley is covered with a garment of virgin snow. The
valley is upwards of two miles broad. It rises from the sea, and goes
far back into the mountains, perhaps to the extent of ten or twelve
miles. The mountains that flank it are five or six thousand feet high.
We have seen such valleys in Norway, within the arctic circle. Before
that first winter has passed, many and many a fall of snow has thickened
and pressed down that first coat; and many a furious storm has caught up
the snow from the mountain-tops and swept it into the valley, adding to
and piling up the mass, and packing it firmly down.
Spring arrives. The short but warm arctic summer bursts upon that vale,
melting the surface of the snow; and the water thus produced sinks
through the mass, converting it into a sort of thick slush--half snow,
half water,--not liquid, yet not solid; just solid enough to lie there
apparently without motion; yet just liquid enough to creep by slow,
absolutely imperceptible degrees, down the valley. The snow in all the
mountain gorges is similarly affected: it creeps (it cannot be said to
flow) out and joins that in the vale. But we cannot perceive any of the
motion of which we are writing. The mass of snow seems to be as still
and motionless as the rocks on which we stand; nay, if we choose we may
walk on its hard surface almost without leaving the slightest print of
our foot. But if we throw a large stone on the surface of the snow and
mark the spot, and return again after many days, we shall find that the
stone has descended the valley a short distance. We shall also observe
that the snow has now a variety of markings on its surface; which might
lead us to fancy, had we not known better, that it had once been a
river, which, while raging down to the sea with all its curling rapids
and whirling eddies, had been arrested in all instant by the ice-king
and frozen solid,--in fact, it has all the graceful lines and forms of
fluidity, with all the steady, motionless aspect of solidity. It really
moves, this vast body of snow; but, like the hour hand of a watch, its
motion cannot be recognised, though we should observe it with prolonged,
unflagging attention. We have called it a vast body of snow, but this
is only comparatively speaking. It will be vaster yet before we have
done with it. At present it is but a thick semi-fluid covering, lying
at the bottom of this ancient arctic vale.
The brief summer ends. Much of the winter snow has been melted and
returned to the sea; but much, very much more, is still lying deep upon
the ground. The world's second winter comes. The first frost
effectually puts a stop to all the melting and moving that we have been
describing. The snow-river no longer moves--it is arrested. The water
no longer percolates through the snow--it is frozen. The mass is no
longer semi-fluid--it is solid ice; and the first step in the process of
a glacier's formation is begun.
Thereafter this process is continued from year to year, each winter
adding _largely_ to its bulk, each summer deducting _slightly_
therefrom. The growing mass of ice ascends the mountain-sides, swallows
the rocks and shrubs and trees in its progress, until its body becomes a
thousand feet thick: the extreme summits of the mountain-peaks alone
tower above the snowy waste, and the mass at the bottom is now, by the
pressure of superincumbent masses, pure ice, hard and clear as crystal.
When the great glacier grows old it still maintains its stealthy
downward motion during every summer. It has reached the shore, and has
been pushed, like a huge white tongue, out into the sea.
"But what has all this to do with icebergs?" it may be inquired. Much,
very much. It is common enough, in commenting on a child, to speak of
the parent. The glacier is the _mother_ of the iceberg.
When, in the world's early morning, the embryo glacier reached the sea,
its thin edges were easily broken off by the waves; but as it increased
and still further encroached, these edges became thicker and thicker,
until at last a wall of pure ice, several hundred feet high, presented
its glittering front to the ocean. It was hard and massive; the sun of
summer had little effect on its frigid face, and it seemed to bid
defiance to the sea itself. But things often are not what they seem.
Each billow sapped its foundation; it soon began to overhang its base.
At length the cohesion of the mass was not sufficient to sustain its
weight. A rending, accompanied by sounds like heaven's artillery, took
place; the crystal mountain bowed its brow and fell with thunderous
crash upon the water; then, rocking slowly under the impulse of its
dread plunge, the first iceberg floated off to sea!
It is right to remark here that this explanation is, to some extent,
disputed--at least there is a difference of opinion as to the _manner_
in which the iceberg leaves its parent glacier. There is no dispute as
to its origin. This difference will be explained shortly in a quotation
from Dr Kane's work; meanwhile, in support of the present theory, let
us listen to the words of one who saw with his own eyes something
similar to what has been described. Dr Scoresby, than whom a better
man never explored the arctic seas, says:--
"In July 1818, I was particularly fortunate in witnessing one of the
grandest effects which these polar glaciers ever present. A strong
north-westerly swell, having for some hours been beating on the shore,
had loosened a number of fragments attached to the iceberg, and various
heaps of broken ice denoted recent shoots of the seaward edge. As we
advanced towards it, with a view of proceeding close to its base, I
observed a few little pieces fall from the top; and while my eye was
fixed upon the place, an immense column, probably fifty feet square, and
one hundred and fifty feet high, began to leave the parent ice at the
top, and, leaning majestically forward, with an accelerated velocity
fell, with an awful crash, into the sea.
"The water into which it plunged was converted into an appearance of
vapour or smoke, like that from a furious cannonading. The noise was
equal to that of thunder, which it nearly resembled. The column which
fell was nearly square, and in magnitude resembled a church. It broke
into thousands of pieces. This circumstance was a happy caution, for we
might inadvertently have gone to the very base of the icy cliff from
whence masses of considerable magnitude were continually breaking!"
Now, this incident suggests the probability, that, had the face of the
glacier projected into deep water, the mass which broke off might have
fallen into the sea without being broken to pieces, and might have
floated away as a berg. We confess, however, to be partial to the view
expressed by some writers, that the great glaciers continue year by year
to thrust their thick tongues out to sea, until the projecting masses
reach water sufficiently deep to float them, when they are quietly
cracked off from their parent and carried away without any fall or
plunge. The following remarks by Dr Kane will make this more clear.
Writing of the iceberg, he says:
"So far from falling into the sea, broken by its weight from the parent
glacier, it rises from the sea. The process is at once gradual and
comparatively quiet. The idea of icebergs being discharged, so
universal among systematic writers, and so recently admitted by myself,
seems to me at variance with the regulated and progressive action of
nature. Developed by such a process, the thousands of bergs which
throng these seas should keep the air and water in perpetual commotion--
one fearful succession of explosive detonations and propagated waves.
But it is only the lesser masses falling into deep waters which could
justify the popular opinion. The enormous masses of the Great Glacier
[of Greenland] are propelled step by step, and year by year, until,
reaching water capable of supporting them, they are floated off, to be
lost in the temperatures of other regions...
"The height of the ice-wall at the nearest point was about three hundred
feet, measured from the water's edge; and the unbroken right line of its
diminishing perspective showed that this might be regarded as its
constant measurement. It seemed, in fact, a great icy table-land,
abutting with a clean precipice against the sea. This is, indeed,
characteristic of all those arctic glaciers which issue from central
reservoirs, or _mers de glace_, upon the fords or bays, and is
strikingly in contrast with the dependent or hanging glacier of the
ravines."
Elsewhere the same writer speaks of this glacier as a line of cliff,
rising in a solid glassy wall to a height of three hundred feet above
the water-level, and with an _unfathomable_ depth below it; and its
curved face, sixty miles in length, from Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes,
vanished into unknown space at not more than a single day's rail-road
travel from the pole. The interior with which it communicated, and from
which it issued, was an unsurveyed _mer de glace_, or sea of ice, of
apparently boundless dimensions; and from one part of this great cliff
he _saw_ long lines of huge bergs floating slowly away.
Here, we think, is ice enough and of sufficient dimensions to account
for the largest bergs that were ever beheld.
It will be at once seen, then, that icebergs, though found floating in
the sea, are not necessarily of the sea. They are composed entirely of
fresh water, and arctic ships can at any time procure a plentiful supply
of good soft drinkable water from the pools that are formed in the
hollows of the bergs.
The risk of approaching icebergs in the arctic regions is not so great
as when they are found floating further south; because when in their
native regions they are comparatively tough, whereas on their southern
journeys they become more or less disintegrated--in fact, the blow of an
axe is sometimes sufficient to cause a rent, which in its turn will
induce other rents and failings asunder, so that the whole mass runs the
risk of being entirely broken up. Hence the danger of ships, in certain
circumstances, venturing to anchor to them. Nevertheless this is a
common practice--sometimes a necessity--among discovery ships and
whalers. It is a convenient practice too; for many a vessel has been
saved from absolute destruction by getting under the lee of a good sound
iceberg, where she has lain as safely, for the time being, as if in a
harbour.
When Captain McClure was endeavouring to make the north-west passage in
1851, he was saved, from what appeared to be at least very probable
destruction, by a small iceberg. On the 17th of September he writes:
"There were several heavy floes in the vicinity. One, full six miles in
length, passed at the rate of two knots, crushing everything that
impeded its progress, and grazed our starboard-bow. Fortunately there
was but young ice upon the opposite side, which yielded to the pressure;
had it otherwise occurred, the vessel must inevitably have been cut
asunder. In the afternoon we secured to a moderately-sized iceberg,
drawing eight fathoms, which appeared to offer a fair refuge, and from
which we never afterwards parted."
To this lump of ice the ship clung with the tenacity of a bosom friend,
and followed it, literally, through thick and thin! There is something
almost ludicrous, as well as striking, in McClure's account of their
connection with this bit of ice. It conveyed them to their furthest
north-east position, and back round the Princess Royal Islands--passed
the largest within five hundred yards--returned along the coast of
Prince Albert's Land--and finally froze in at latitude 70 degrees 50
minutes north, longitude 117 degrees 55 minutes west, on the 30th
September; during which circumnavigation they received many severe
"nips," and were frequently driven close to the shore, from which their
dear friend the iceberg, small though he was, kept them off.
Icebergs assume almost every conceivable form, and are seen of every
size--sometimes, also, in great numbers. Scoresby mentions one occasion
on which he was surrounded by bergs to the number of several hundreds.
Now, all this ice that we have been speaking of, besides being, in a
secondary way, a passive agent in the affairs of man (chiefly in barring
his progress northward), is one of the most potent agents in the economy
of nature. It is the means by which the world is kept cool enough for
man and beast to dwell in. The polar regions--north and south--are, as
it were, the world's refrigerators; tempering the heated air of the
south, and, in connection with the torrid zone, spreading throughout the
Earth those beneficial influences which gladden the sphere of man's
temporal existence.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
ICE AN AGENT IN TRANSPORTING BOULDERS--HOW THIS COMES ABOUT--DR. KANE'S
OBSERVATIONS--LONG NIGHT IN WINTER AND LONG DAY IN SUMMER--EXTREME
DARKNESS--INFLUENCE ON DOGS--INTENSE COLD--EFFECT ON THE SEA.
There are many things in this world which, up to within a few years
back, have been to men a source of surprise and mystery.
Some of these problems have been solved by recent travellers, and not a
few of them are referable to polar oceans and ice.
In many parts of our coasts we find very striking and enormously large
boulder-stones lying on the beach, perfectly isolated, and their edges
rounded away like pebbles, as if they had been rolled on some
antediluvian beach strewn with Titanic stones. These boulders are
frequently found upon the loose sands of the sea-shore, far removed from
any rocks or mountains from which they might be supposed to have been
broken; and, more than that, totally different in their nature from the
geological formations of the districts in which they are found. "Whence
came these?" has been the question of the inquisitive of all ages, "and
how came they there?"
There may, for aught we know to the contrary, be more than one answer to
these questions; but there is at least one which is quite satisfactory
as to how and whence at least some of them have come. Ice was the means
of conveying these boulders to their present positions.
It has been said that once upon a time a large part of this country was
under the dominion of ice, even as the polar regions and some of the
mountains and valleys of Norway are at the present day; that the
boulders we see in elevated places were conveyed thither by glacier
action; and that when the glacial period passed away, they were left
there on the hill-sides--sometimes almost on the mountain-tops. But
this is not the question we are considering just now. We are now
inquiring into the origin of those huge boulders that are found upon our
coasts and on the coasts of other lands--boulders which could not have
rolled down from the hills, for there are no hills at all near many of
them; and those hills that are near some of them are of different
geological formation.
This question will be answered at once, and one of the phenomena of
arctic ice and oceanic agency will be exhibited, by reference to the
recent discoveries of the celebrated arctic voyager, Dr Kane of the
American Navy.
While wintering far beyond the head of Baffin's Bay, and beyond the most
northerly point, in that direction, that had at that time been reached
by any previous traveller, Dr Kane made many interesting observations
and discoveries. He seems to have penetrated deep into the heart of
Nature's northern secrets. Among other things, he ascertained the
manner in which boulders are transported from their northern home.
The slow, creeping movement of glaciers, to which we have already
referred, is one means whereby large boulders are formed. At the lower
edge of one of the glaciers of Norway we saw boulders, thirty or forty
feet in diameter, which had been rolled and forced, probably for ages,
down the valley by the glacier, and thrust out on the sea-beach, where
they lay with their angles and corners rubbed off and their surfaces
rounded and smoothed as completely as those of the pebbles by which they
were surrounded.
Had these boulders been formed in the arctic regions, they might have
been thrust out upon the thick solid crust of the frozen sea, which in
time would have been broken off and floated away; thus rafting the
boulders to other shores. The formation of boulders, and their
positions, are facts that we have seen. Their being carried out to sea
by ice-rafts is a fact that Dr Kane has seen and recorded. On the wild
rocky shores where his ship was set fast, there was a belt of ice lining
the margin of the sea, which he termed the "ice-belt," or the
"ice-foot." This belt never melted completely, and was usually fast to
the shore. In fact it was that portion of the sea-ice which was left
behind each spring when the general body of ice was broken up and swept
away. Referring to this, he writes:
"The spot at which we landed I have called Cape James Kent. It was a
lofty headland, and the land-ice which hugged its base was covered with
rocks from the cliffs above. As I looked over this ice-belt, losing
itself in the far distance, and covered with its millions of tons of
rubbish, greenstones, limestones, chlorite, slates, rounded and angular,
massive and ground to powder, its importance as a geological agent, in
the transportation of drift, struck me with great force.
"Its whole substance was studded with these varied contributions from
the shore; and further to the south, upon the now frozen waters of
Marshall Bay, I could recognise raft after raft from the last year's
ice-belt which had been caught by the winter, each one laden with its
heavy freight of foreign material.
"The water torrents and thaws of summer unite with the tides in
disengaging the ice-belt from the coast; but it is not uncommon for
large bergs to drive against it and carry away the growths of many
years. I have found masses that had been detached in this way, floating
many miles out at sea--long, symmetrical tables, two hundred feet long
by eighty broad, covered with large angular rocks and boulders, and
seemingly impregnated throughout with detrited matter. These rafts in
Marshall Bay were so numerous, that could they have melted as I saw
them, the bottom of the sea would have presented a more curious study
for the geologist than the boulder-covered lines of our middle
latitudes. One boulder in particular had had its origin in a valley
where rounded fragments of water-washed greenstone had been poured out
by the torrents and frozen into the coast-ice of the belt. The
attrition of subsequent matter had truncated the great egg-shaped rock,
and worn its sides into a striated face, whose scratches still indicated
the line of water-flow."
So, then, when we next meet with a huge isolated boulder on any of our
flat beaches, we may gaze at it with additional interest, when we
reflect that, perchance, it was carried thither by the ocean, countless
ages ago, from the arctic regions, on a gigantic raft of ice; after
having been, at a still more remote period, torn from its cliffs by some
mighty glacier and slowly rolled and rounded, for hundreds of years
perhaps down the scarred slopes of its native valley.
The primary cause of the intense and prolonged cold of the arctic
regions is the shortness of the time during which they are under the
influence of the sun's rays. For a few months in summer the sun shines
brightly, but, owing to the position of the globe, obliquely on the
poles. During part of that period it shines at mid-night as well as at
mid-day. Put during the greater part of the year its beams throw but a
feeble light there, and for several months in winter there is absolutely
no day at all--nothing but one long dismal night of darkness, that seems
as if the bright orb of day had vanished from the heavens for ever.
The length of this prolonged day in summer, and this dreary night in
winter, depends, of course, upon latitude. The length of both increases
as we approach the poles. The long daylight in summer is exceedingly
delightful. We once saw the sun describe an almost unbroken circle in
the sky for many days and nights, and had we been a few degrees further
north we should have seen it describe an entire circle. As it was, it
only disappeared for twenty minutes. It set about midnight, and in
twenty minutes it rose again so that there was no night, not even
twilight, but a bright, beautiful blazing day, for several weeks
together.
Dr Kane describes the midnight sun thus: "On our road we were favoured
with a gorgeous spectacle, which hardly any excitement of peril could
have made us overlook. The midnight sun came out over the northern
crest of the great berg, our late `fast friend,' kindling
variously-coloured fires on every part of its surface, and making the
ice around us one great resplendency of gem-work--blazing carbuncles and
rubies, and molten gold."
Very different indeed is the aspect of the winter night. Let the same
authority speak, for he had great experience thereof.
On December 15th he writes: "We have lost the last vestige of our
mid-day twilight. We cannot see print, and hardly paper. The fingers
cannot be counted a foot front the eyes. Noonday and midnight are
alike; and, except a vague glimmer on the sky, that seems to define the
hill-outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this arctic
world of ours has a sun. In one week more we shall reach the midnight
of the year...
"The influence of this long intense darkness was most depressing. Even
our dogs, although the greater number of them were natives of the arctic
circle, were unable to withstand it. Most of them died from an
anomalous form of disease, to which I am satisfied, the absence of light
contributed as much as extreme cold." Quoting from his journal he says:
"I am so afflicted with the insomnia of this eternal night, that I rise
at any time between midnight and noon. I went on deck this morning at
five o'clock. It was absolutely dark; the cold not permitting a
swinging lamp, there was not a glimmer came to me through the
ice-crusted window-panes of the cabin. While I was feeling my way, half
puzzled as to the best method of steering clear of whatever might be
before me, two of my Newfoundland dogs put their cold noses against my
hand, and instantly commenced the most exuberant antics of satisfaction.
It then occurred to me how very dreary and forlorn must these poor
animals be, at atmospheres 10 degrees above zero in-doors and 50 degrees
below zero without--living in darkness, howling at an accidental light,
as if it reminded them of the moon--and with nothing, either of instinct
or sensation, to tell them of the passing hours, or to explain the long
lost daylight. They shall see the lantern more frequently."
Yet this state of midnight darkness is not altogether unmitigated.
There are a few ameliorating influences at work, the nature of some of
which we will treat of in the next chapter. Among others, the moon
frequently shines there with great brilliancy in winter. Dr Kane says
that in October the moon had reached her greatest northern declination:
"She is a glorious object. Sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest
part of her curve she is still 14 degrees above the horizon. For eight
days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness.
It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of
sleigh-bells and songs and glad communings of hearts in lands that are
far away."
But despite all the varied and transient beauties of the northern skies
in winter, the long arctic night is undoubtedly depressing in the
extreme. In these regions men speak of being able to read the
thermometer on the 7th of November at noonday "without a light," as
being matter for gratulation. The darkness still before them at that
time would be of about three months' duration, and even then they would
only get back to a species of twilight.
The cold experienced by these navigators of the northern seas is
terribly intense. Their thermometers have frequently indicated a
temperature as low as 75 degrees below zero, or 107 degrees of frost, on
Fahrenheit's scale. The thermometers of arctic explorers are always
filled with spirits of wine, as quicksilver freezes at about 40 degrees
below zero, and is therefore unsuitable. It would be frozen, indeed,
the greater part of the winter.
Dr Kane says: "At such temperatures chloric ether became solid, and
carefully prepared chloroform exhibited a granular pellicle on its
surface. Spirits of naphtha froze at 54 degrees below zero, and oil of
sassafras at 49 degrees. The oil of winter-green was in a flocculent
state at 56 degrees, and solid at 63 degrees.
"The exhalations from the surface of the body invested the exposed or
partially clad parts with a wreath of vapour. The air had a perceptible
pungency upon inspiration, but I could not perceive the painful
sensation which has been spoken of by some Siberian travellers. When
breathed for any length of time, it imparted a sensation of dryness to
the air-passages. I noticed that, as it were involuntarily, we all
breathed guardedly, with compressed lips."
Now, strange to say, this extremely low temperature does not affect the
ocean to any great depth. Just below the ice, in cold such as the
above, the sea was found to be 29 degrees _above_ zero. No doubt,
deeper down, the temperature was still warmer. We have heard it said,
that when men chance to fall into the water in cold regions, in the
depth of winter, it feels at first rather warm and agreeable! On
scrambling out again, however, their condition is not enviable; for in a
few minutes the keen frost causes their garments to become as hard as
boards.
Much light has been thrown on the fact of the existence of under and
upper currents in the sea, by the phenomena of the arctic regions, and
some of the questions to which these currents give rise are so
interesting that we shall treat of them in a new chapter.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
QUESTION OF AN OPEN SEA ROUND THE POLES--UPPER AND UNDER CURRENTS OF THE
OCEAN--CAUSE THEREOF--HABITS OF THE WHALE AS BEARING ON THE QUESTION--
DR. KANE'S DISCOVERY OF AN OPEN SEA IN THE FAR NORTH--NOTES ON THE
EXPEDITION--A BEAR-HUNT.
It was long and very naturally supposed that the impenetrable ice of the
arctic regions extended to, and, as it were, sealed up the pole. But
from time to time philosophic observers of Nature's laws began to hint
their opinion that there is an open ocean around the pole; and of late
years this opinion has all but been converted into a firm belief.
Maury remarks, that like air--like the body--the ocean _must_ have a
system of circulation for its waters. And an attentive study of the
currents of the sea, and a close examination of the laws which govern
the movements of the waters in their channels of circulation through the
ocean, will lead us irresistibly to the conclusion that always, in
summer and winter, there must be, somewhere within the arctic circle, a
large body of open water.
There is an under-current setting from the Atlantic, northward through
Davis' Straits, into the Arctic Ocean, and a surface-current setting
out.
The fact is proved beyond a doubt by the observations of arctic
explorers, who have seen immense icebergs drifting rapidly northward
against a strong current. This apparent anomaly could only be accounted
for by the fact that a powerful undercurrent carried them northward; and
as at least seven times more of these bergs must have been under than
above water, we can easily understand how the under-current, acting on
the larger mass of each berg, had power to carry it against the
surface-current.
This under-current is _warm_, while the upper-current is _cold_. Now we
know that according to Nature's laws, heated water, like heated air,
rises to the surface, and cold water sinks to the bottom. How, then,
comes this warm current to be underneath the cold, as soundings have
proved it to be? It is owing to the fact that the under-current is much
salter, and therefore heavier (despite its warmth), than the
surface-current; which latter, being mingled with the drainage and
ice-masses of the arctic regions, is comparatively fresh, and therefore
light as well as cold.
The hot and salt waters of the tropics are carried north by the Gulf
Stream. There are here two counteracting agents at work. Heat inclines
the Gulf Stream to rise; saltness inclines it to sink. During the first
part of its journey, as we know, its great heat prevails over the other
influence, and it flows as a surface-current. But, at a certain point
in its northward route, it meets with the cold, brackish, ice-bearing
currents that flow out of the arctic basin. Having lost much of its
heat (though still possessing a great deal more than the arctic
currents), the saltness of the Gulf Stream prevails; it dips below the
polar waters, and thenceforth continues its course as an under-current,
salt, and comparatively warm.
To state the matter briefly: The hot water, which _ought_ to keep on the
surface because of its heat, is sunk by its superabundant salt; and the
cold water, which _ought_ to sink because of its cold, is buoyed on the
surface because of its want of salt.
Now arises the question--what becomes of the great quantity of salt that
is thus being carried perpetually into the polar basin? Manifestly it
must be carried out again by the surface-current, otherwise the polar
basin would of necessity become a basin of salt. The under-current
_must_, therefore, rise to the surface somewhere near the pole, with its
temperature necessarily only a little, if at all, below the
freezing-point--which, be it observed, is a _warm_ temperature for such
regions. Here, then, where the warm waters from the south rise to the
surface, it is supposed this open Arctic Ocean must exist.
So much for theory. Now for facts that have been observed, and that
tend, more or less, to corroborate this proposition of an open polar
sea. The habits of the whale have gone far to prove it. The log-books
of whalers have for many years been carefully examined and compared by
scientific men. These investigations have led to the discovery "that
the tropical regions of the ocean are to the `right' whale as a sea of
fire, through which he cannot pass, and into which he never enters." It
has also been ascertained that the same kind of whale which is found off
the shores of Greenland, in Baffin's Bay, etcetera, is found in the
North Pacific, and about Behring's Straits; and that the `right' whale
of the southern hemisphere is a different animal from that of the
northern. How, then, came the Greenland whales to pass from the
Greenland seas to the Pacific? Not by the Capes Horn or Good Hope; the
"sea of fire" precluded that. Clearly there was ground here for
concluding that they did so through the (supposed) open sea lying
beyond, or rather within, the frozen ocean.
It is true the objection might be made, that the same kind of whale
which exists in the North Pacific exists also in the North Atlantic,
although they never cross over to see each other. But another discovery
has met this objection.
It is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons marked with date
and name of ship, and Dr Scoresby, in his work on arctic voyages
mentions several instances of whales having been taken near Behring's
Straits, with harpoons in them bearing the stamp of ships that were
known to cruise in the Greenland seas; and the dates on the harpoons
were so recent as to preclude the supposition that the said whales had,
after being struck, made a voyage round the capes above mentioned,--even
were such a voyage possible to them. All this does not, indeed,
absolutely prove the existence of an open arctic sea, but it does, we
think, prove the existence of at least an _occasionally_ open sea there,
for it is well known that whales cannot travel such immense distances
under ice.
But the most conclusive evidence that we have in regard to this subject
is the fact, that one of the members of Dr Kane's expedition, while in
search of Sir John Franklin, did actually, on foot, reach what we have
every reason to believe was this open sea; but not being able to get
their ship into it, the party had no means of exploring it, or extending
their investigations. The account of this discovery is so interesting,
and withal so romantic, that we extract a few paragraphs relating to it
from Kane's work.
After spending the dreary winter in the ice-locked and unexplored
channels beyond the head of Baffin's Bay, Kane found his little ship
still hopelessly beset in the month of June; he therefore resolved to
send out a sledge-party under Morton, one of his best men, to explore
the channel to the north of their position. After twelve days'
travelling they came to the base of the "Great Glacier," where Morton
left his party, and, in company with an Esquimaux named Hans, set out
with a dog-sledge to prosecute the journey of exploration.
They walked on the sea-ice in a line parallel with the glacier, and
proceeded twenty-eight miles that day, although the snow was knee-deep
and soft. At the place where they encamped a crack enabled them to
measure the ice. It was seven feet five inches thick! And this in
June. We may mention here, in passing, that Dr Kane never got his
vessel out of that frozen strait, which seems to be bound by perpetual
ice. He and his party escaped with their lives; but the vessel that
bore them thither is probably still embedded in that ice.
Next day Morton and Hans came to a region of icebergs, which had
arrested a previous sledging-party of the same expedition. "These
[icebergs] were generally very high, evidently newly separated from the
glacier. Their surfaces were fresh and glassy, and not like those
generally met with in Baffin's Bay,--less worn, and bluer, and looking
in all respects like the face of the Great Glacier. Many were
rectangular, some of them regular squares, a quarter of a mile each way;
others more than a mile long."
To pass amidst these bergs was a matter of labour, difficulty, and
danger. Sometimes the sides of them came so close together, that the
men could scarcely squeeze between them, and they were obliged to search
for other passages; in doing which, the variation of their compass
confused them. At other times, "a tolerably wide passage would appear
between two bergs, which they would gladly follow; then a narrower one;
then no opening in front, but one to the side. Following that a little
distance, a blank ice-cliff would close the way altogether, and they
were forced to retrace their steps and begin again."
Thus they puzzled their way through, "like a blind man in the streets of
a strange city;" but more difficulties awaited them beyond. After
advancing many miles they were arrested by broad rents in the ice, and
were obliged to diverge frequently far out of their course, or to bridge
the chasms over by cutting down the ice hummocks and filling them up
with loose ice, until the dogs were able to haul the provision-sledge
over.
Advancing thus for several days, and encamping on the snow at night,
they at last came to a spot where the ice was dangerous. "It was weak
and rotten, and the dogs began to tremble." Proceeding at a brisk rate,
they had got upon unsafe ice before they were aware of it. Their course
was at the time nearly up the middle of the channel; but as soon as
possible they turned, and by a backward circuit reached the shore. The
dogs, as their fashion is, at first lay down and refused to proceed,
trembling violently. The only way to induce the terrified, obstinate
brutes to get on, was for Hans to go to a white-looking spot, where the
ice was thicker, the soft stuff looking dark; then calling the dogs
coaxingly by name, they would crawl to him on their bellies. So they
retreated from place to place, until they reached the firm ice they had
quitted. A half mile brought them to comparatively safe ice, a mile
more to good ice again.
In the midst of this danger they had, during the liftings of the fog,
sighted open water. Soon after they saw it plainly. So many long and
dreary months had these men passed since they were gladdened by the
sight of open water, that they could scarcely believe their eyes; and
Morton declared, that but for the birds which were seen flying about it
in great numbers, he would not have believed it.
They made for the land-ice as fast as possible, and quickly gained it;
but the sea-ice had cracked off and sunk so much, that the land-ice
presented a wall along the whole coast of about eight or nine feet high.
It was quite perpendicular, in some places overhanging, so that it was
a matter of the greatest difficulty they managed to throw up the
provisions, clamber up themselves, and haul the dogs and sledge up
afterwards. This accomplished, however, they were safe, and could
advance with confidence. But this mass of land-ice became narrower as
they proceeded, till at last it dwindled to a mere narrow ledge,
clinging to the high, perpendicular cliffs, and looking as if at any
moment it might crumble off and fall with them into the open water
between it and the floating sea-ice.
The sea here was very deep and clear. They could see the bottom quite
plainly, although a stone they cast in, the size of a man's head, took
twenty-eight seconds to reach it.
Being now afraid of the ice-ledge, they attempted to find a path along
the face of the cliff; but failing in this, Morton determined to leave
part of the provisions in "_cache_," and proceed with a lighter load.
The cape round which they were travelling, and on the other side of
which lay the open water, was extremely bold, and the ice-ledge at the
end of it was barely three feet wide; so they were obliged to unloose
the dogs, and drive them forward alone, then tilted the sledge on one
runner, and thus pushed it past the worst place.
Here the ice on the sea was partly broken up, and a strong tide was
running from the southward. The night before it had been running from
the north. As they advanced, the channel became still more open, and
after passing the cape they saw nothing but open water, with innumerable
wild sea-birds of every description flying overhead, or disporting in
the pools. Let it by observed here, however, that this was the open
water of a strait or channel,--not the great Arctic Sea, about the
probable existence of which we have been writing. Upon the ice-masses
near them numerous seals were seen basking.
One thing that struck them much here was, that although strong north
winds, amounting to a gale at times, had been blowing for several days,
no ice had been brought down from the north into the channel, along the
shore of which they travelled. Thick, damp fogs prevailed, preventing
them from seeing far in advance at any time.
At last they came to a place where the broken ice of the shore rendered
passage for the sledge impossible. They therefore tied the dogs,
intending to push forward a short way alone. But they had not been
sufficiently careful to secure them; for the poor animals, supposing
themselves deserted, no doubt, succeeded in breaking their lines, and
rejoined the two men in about an hour after. This, as it turned out,
was rather a fortunate circumstance.
Preparatory to quitting their sledge, the men had loaded themselves with
eight pounds of pemmican and two of biscuit, besides the artificial
horizon, sextant, and compass, a rifle, and a boathook. They had not
been an hour gone when, as above stated, four of the dogs overtook them.
An hour afterwards they came upon a polar bear with her cub.
The fight that followed, although somewhat foreign to our subject, is so
graphically described by Dr Kane, that we think it quite unnecessary to
apologise for inserting it here.
"The bear instantly took to flight; but the little one being unable to
keep pace with her, she turned back, and, putting her head under its
haunches, threw it some distance. The cub safe for the moment, she
would then wheel round and face the dogs, so as to give it a chance to
run away; but it always stopped, just as it alighted, till she came up
and threw it ahead again; it seemed to expect her aid, and would not go
on without it. Sometimes the mother would run a few yards ahead, as if
to coax the young one up to her, and when the dogs came up she would
turn and drive them back then, as they dodged her blows, she would
rejoin the cub and push on, sometimes putting her head under it,
sometimes catching it in her mouth by the nape of the neck.
"For a time she managed her retreat with great celerity, leaving the two
men far in the rear. They had engaged her on the land-ice; but she led
the dogs in-shore, up a small stony valley which opened into the
interior. After she had gone a mile and a half, her pace slackened,
and, the little one being jaded, she soon came to a halt.
"The men were then only half a mile behind, and running at full speed.
They soon came up to where the dogs were holding her at bay. The fight
was now a desperate one. The mother never went more than two yards
ahead, constantly looking at the cub. When the dogs came near her, she
would sit upon her haunches, and take the little one between her
hind-legs, fighting the dogs with her paws, and roaring so that she
could have been heard a mile off. Never was an animal more distressed.
She would stretch her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining
teeth, whirling her paws like the arms of a windmill. If she missed her
aim, not daring to pursue one dog lest the others should harm the cub,
she would give a great roar of baffled rage, and go on pawing and
snapping, and facing the ring, grinning at them with her mouth stretched
wide.
"When the men came up the little one was perhaps rested, for it was able
to turn round with its dam, no matter how quick she moved, so as to keep
always in front of her belly. The five dogs were all the time frisking
about her actively, tormenting her like so many gad-flies. Indeed they
made it difficult to take an aim at her without killing them. But Hans,
lying on his elbow, took a quiet aim, and shot her through the head.
She dropped and rolled over dead, without moving a muscle.
"The dogs sprang towards her at once; but the cub jumped upon her body
and reared up, for the first time growling hoarsely. They seemed quite
afraid of the little creature, she fought so actively, and made so much
noise; and, while tearing mouthfuls of hair from the dead mother, they
would spring aside the minute the cub turned towards them. The men
drove the dogs off for a time, but were obliged to shoot the cub at
last, as she would not quit the body.
"Hans fired into her head. It did not reach the brain, though it
knocked her down; but she was still able to climb on her mother's body,
and try to defend it, her mouth bleeding like a gutter-spout. They were
obliged to despatch her with stones."
After skinning the old one they gashed its body, and the dogs fed upon
it ravenously. The little one they _cached_ for themselves against
their return.
This little fight quite knocked up Hans the Esquimaux; Morton therefore
advanced alone, in the hope of being able to get beyond a huge cape that
lay before him. On reaching it, the grand sight of an _apparently
boundless ocean of open water_ met his eye. Only "four or five small
pieces" of ice were seen on the glancing waves of this hitherto unknown
sea. "Viewed from the cliffs," writes Dr Kane, "and taking thirty-six
miles as the mean radius open to reliable survey, this sea had a
justly-estimated extent of more than 4000 square miles."
Here, then, in all probability, is the great Arctic Ocean that has been
supposed to exist in a perpetually fluid state round the pole, encircled
by a ring of ice that has hitherto presented an impenetrable barrier to
all the adventurers of ancient and modern times. There were several
facts connected with this discovery that go far to prove that this ocean
is perpetually open.
Further south, where Dr Kane's brig lay in ice that seemed never to
melt, there were few signs of animal life--only a seal or two now and
then; but here, on the margin of this far northern sea, were myriads of
water-fowl of various kinds.
"The Brent goose," writes the Doctor, "had not been seen before since
entering Smith's Strait. It is well known to the polar traveller as a
migratory bird of the American continent. Like the others of the same
family, it feeds upon vegetable matter, generally on marine plants, with
their adherent molluscan life. It is rarely or never seen in the
interior; and from its habits may be regarded as singularly indicative
of open water. The flocks of this bird, easily distinguished by their
wedge-shaped line of flight, now crossed the water obliquely, and
disappeared over the land to the north-east.
"The rocks on shore were crowded with sea-swallows, birds whose habits
require open water; and they were already breeding. The gulls were
represented by no less than four species. The kittiwakes--reminding
Morton of `old times in Baffin's Bay'--were again stealing fish from the
water (probably the small whiting), and their grim cousins, the
burgomasters, enjoying the dinner thus provided at so little cost to
themselves. It was a picture of life all round.
"Here, for the first time, Morton noticed the arctic petrel,--a fact
which shows the accuracy of his observation, though he had not been
aware of its importance. This bird had not been met with since we left
the north water of the English whalers, more than two hundred miles
south of the position on which he stood. Its food is essentially
marine; and it is seldom seen in numbers, except in the highways of open
water frequented by the whale and the larger representatives of ocean
life. They were in numbers flitting and hovering over the crests of the
waves, like their relatives of kinder climates,--the Cape of Good Hope
pigeons, Mother Carey's chickens, and the petrels everywhere else.
"It must have been an imposing sight, as Morton stood at this
termination of his journey, looking out upon the great waste of waters
before him. Not a speck of ice could be seen. There, from a height of
480 feet, which commanded a horizon of almost forty miles, his ears were
gladdened with the novel music of dashing waves; and a surf, breaking in
among the rocks at his feet, stayed his further progress."
Strong presumptive evidence, all this, that there is an ocean of open
water round the pole, and a milder climate there than exists nearer to
the arctic circle. Had the short barrier of ice that intervened between
the brig and that mysterious sea been removed, as, perchance, it is
sometimes removed by a hot summer, Dr Kane might have been the first to
reach the North Pole. This, however, is reserved for some other
navigator. The gallant Kane now lies in an early grave but some of his
enterprising comrades have returned to those regions, bent on solving
this problem; and it is possible that, even while we now write, their
adventurous keel may be ploughing the waters of the hitherto untraversed
and mysterious polar sea.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA OF THE POLAR SEAS AND REGIONS--THE AURORA
BOREALIS--ICE-BLINK--OPTICAL ILLUSIONS--ANECDOTE OF SCORESBY--HALOES--
CORONAE--MOCK SUNS--REFRACTION--FROSTS.
Owing to the intensity of the cold in the arctic regions, there are, as
we may readily believe, many singular appearances connected with the
ocean and the atmosphere, which are worthy of special notice.
Chief, perhaps, among the phenomena of those regions is the _Aurora
Borealis_.
Ever mindful of the welfare of the creatures whom he has formed, the
Almighty has appointed a light to mitigate the darkness of the polar
regions when the sun, in its appointed course, withdraws for a season.
What the aurora borealis is no one knows, although many have hazarded
opinions regarding it.
What it is like is known even to ourselves, though the faint indications
of it which sometimes seen in our own heavens are not to be compared to
the brilliancy of the spectacle that is occasionally presented in the
northern skies.
The most ordinary aspect of the aurora is that of a band of pale-green
light extending irregularly over part of the sky, and marked by wavy
motions, as well as by varying brightness. Sometimes one part of this
band becomes more bright than another part. Sometimes the whole seems
to move gently, like the undulations of a flag in a light breeze; at
other times more vigorous action takes place, and pointed tongues of
light shoot vividly up into the zenith. This sometimes takes place so
frequently, and the tongues are so long and numerous, that the aurora
has been popularly termed the "northern streamers."
Although pale-green is the most frequent colour, the aurora borealis has
often been observed with blue and red hues; and the sky has been seen
suffused with an intense crimson colour by it.
Captains Parry and Lyon saw these northern lights in full splendour
during their residence in the arctic regions. They tell us that "the
aurora had a tendency to form an irregular arch, which, in calm weather,
was very often distinct, though its upper boundary was seldom well
defined; but whenever the air was agitated, showers of rays spread in
every direction with the rapidity of lightning, but always appearing to
move to and from a fixed point, somewhat like a ribbon held in the hand
and shaken with an undulatory motion. No rule, however, could be traced
in the movement of those lighter parcels called the `merry dancers,'
which flew about perpetually towards every quarter; becoming in stormy
weather more rapid in their motions, and sharing all the wildness of the
blast. They gave an indescribable air of magic to the whole scene, and
made it not wonderful that, by the untaught Indian, they should be
viewed as `the spirits of his fathers roaming through the land of
souls.'"
We are told by some that the aurora borealis is accompanied by a loud
hissing and crackling sound and Captain Lyon says that the sudden glare
and rapid bursts of those wondrous showers of fire make it difficult to
believe that their movements are wholly without sound. Yet such would
seem to be the case, for the same authority tells us that he stood on
the ice for hours listening intently and could hear nothing. He was
thoroughly convinced that no sound proceeds from the aurora, and most
intelligent voyagers support him in this opinion.
That the aurora dims the lustre of the stars seen through it, is a fact
which was ascertained clearly by the same gentleman; and that it moves
in a region beyond the clouds is also evident from the fact that when
the latter covered the sky the aurora disappeared.
But some of the most singular appearances of the sea and sky in the
polar regions are presented in summer. During that season the perpetual
presence of the sun and the large tracts of ice floating about on the
sea exert their opposing influences so as to produce the most
astonishing results.
One part of the sea being covered with ice, produces a cold atmosphere;
another part being free from ice, produces a warmer atmosphere.
Refraction is the result of viewing objects through those different
media, and very curious appearances follow. When Scoresby was in
Greenland a singular atmospheric phenomenon occurred, whereby he became
aware of the approach of his father's ship some time before it rose
above the horizon. He had reached Greenland before his father, who
followed him in the _Fame_. The following is his account of the
circumstance:
"On my return to the ship, about eleven o'clock, the night was
beautifully fine and the air quite mild. The atmosphere, in consequence
of the warmth, being in a highly refractive state, a great many curious
appearances were presented by the land and icebergs. The most
extraordinary effect of this state of the atmosphere, however, was the
distinct inverted image of a ship in the clear sky, over the middle of
the large bay or inlet, the ship itself being entirely beyond the
horizon. Appearances of this kind I have before noticed, but the
peculiarities of this were the perfection of the image, and the great
distance of the vessel that it represented. It was so extremely well
defined, that, when examined with a telescope, I could distinguish every
sail, the general `rig of the ship,' and its peculiar character;
insomuch that I confidently pronounced it to be my father's ship the
_Fame_, which it afterwards proved to be, though, on comparing notes
with my father, I found that our relative positions at the time gave our
distance from one another very nearly thirty miles, being about
seventeen miles beyond the horizon, and some leagues beyond the line of
direct vision."
Scoresby was, perhaps, one of the most persevering and intelligent
observers of nature that ever went to the polar seas. His various
accounts of what he saw are most interesting. We cannot do better than
quote his remarks upon _ice-blink_, that curious appearance of white
light on the horizon, whereby voyagers are led to infer the presence of
ice:--
"This appearance of the _ice-blink_," says he, "occurred on the 13th of
June 1820, in latitude 76 degrees north. The sky aloft was covered with
dense, uniform, hazy cloud, which indeed occupied the whole of the
heavens, excepting a portion near the horizon, where it seemed to be
repelled. The upper white blink referred to ice about six miles
distant, being beyond the horizon; the narrow yellowish portions
referred to floes and compact ice; the lowest yellow blink, which in
brightness and colour resembled the moon, was the reflection of a field
at the distance of thirty miles, to which, directed by the blink, we
made way in the _Baffin_, through the channels of water represented in
the sky by bluish-grey streaks. The field we found to be a sheet of ice
150 miles in circumference!"
Another very singular appearance observed occasionally in foggy weather
is a series of bright circles, or coronae, surrounding the heads or
persons of individuals in certain positions. We have, while standing at
the mast-head of a vessel in Hudson's Straits, observed our own shadow
thrown on the sea with a bright halo round it. The day was bright and
hazy at the time. Referring to a particular case of this kind, Scoresby
says:
"During the month of July 1820, the weather being often foggy, with a
bright sun sometimes shining at the height of the day, some
extraordinary coronae were observed from the mast-head. These occurred
opposite to the sun, the centre of all the circles being in a line drawn
from the sun through the eye of the observer. On one occasion four
coloured luminous circles were observed. The exterior one might be
twenty degrees in diameter. It exhibited all the colours of the
spectrum. The next, a little within it, was of a whitish-grey colour;
the third was only four or five degrees in diameter, and though it
exhibited the colours of the spectrum, these colours were not very
brilliant. The fourth was extremely beautiful and brilliant. The
interior colour was yellow, then orange, red, violet, etcetera. The
colours of the whole three coronae were, I think, in the same order, but
of this I am not very certain. Indeed, on reflection, I suspect that
the second circle must have been in the reverse order of the first; the
first and the fourth being the same. The third was not coloured. In
the midst of these beautiful coronae I observed my own shadow, the head
surrounded by a glory. All the coronae were evidently produced by the
fog; my shadow was impressed on the surface of the sea."
The cause of these phenomena is "the reflection of the sun's rays,
decomposed by different refractions in minute globules of water, of
which the mist, wherein the coronae occur, in a great measure appears to
consist."
Mock suns, or _parhelia_, are common appearances in northern skies.
Sometimes two of these mock suns are seen, one on each side of their
great original, glowing so brightly that either of them, if we could
suppose it to have shone in the sky alone, would have made a very
respectable sun indeed! Even four of these "sun-dogs"--as they are some
times called--have been seen surrounding the sun; one on each side of
it, one directly above, and one immediately below, with a ring of light
connecting them together, a streak of light passing horizontally and
another passing perpendicularly between them, thus forming a luminous
cross, in the centre of which was the sun itself. This magnificent
spectacle is sometimes enhanced by a second circle of light enclosing
the whole, and the edges of several outer circles springing in faint
light therefrom until gradually lost, leaving the imagination to call up
the idea of an endless series of glories extending over the whole sky.
Refraction frequently causes grotesque as well as wonderful and
beautiful appearances. Ships are sometimes seen with their hulls
flattened and their masts and sails drawn out to monstrous dimensions;
or the hulls are heightened so as to appear like heavy castle walls,
while the masts and sails are rendered ludicrously squat and
disproportioned; and not only so, but ships are often seen with their
images inverted over their own masts, so that to the observer it appears
as if one ship were balancing another upside down--mast-head to
mast-head. Land and icebergs assume the same curious appearances--peaks
touching peaks, one set pointing upwards, the other set pointing down,
while the broad bases are elevated in the air. At other times the whole
mass of land and ice on the horizon is more or less broken up and
scattered about as if in confusion, yet with a certain amount of
regularity in the midst of it all, arising from the fact of every object
being presented in duplicate, sometimes triplicate, and occasionally,
though seldom, four-fold.
When sharp sudden frosts occur in those regions, the splendour of the
scenery is still further enhanced by the formation of innumerable minute
crystals which sparkle literally with as much lustrous beauty as the
diamond. On one occasion Scoresby's ship was decorated with uncommon
magnificence, and in a peculiarly interesting manner.
"In the course of the night," he writes, "the rigging of the ship was
most splendidly decorated with a fringe of delicate crystals. The
general form of these was that of a feather having half of the vane
removed. Near the surface of the ropes was first a small direct line of
very white particles, constituting the stem or shaft of the feather; and
from each of these fibres, in another plane, proceeded a short delicate
range of spiculae or rays, discoverable only by the help of a
microscope, with which the elegant texture and systematic construction
of the feather were completed. Many of these crystals, possessing a
perfect arrangement of the different parts corresponding with the shaft,
vane, and rachis of a feather, were upwards of an inch in length, and
three-fourths of an inch in breadth. Some consisted of a single flake
or feather, but many of them gave rise to other feathers, which sprang
from the surface of the vane at the usual angle. There seemed to be no
limit to the magnitude of these feathers, so long as the producing cause
continued to operate, until their weight because so great, or the action
of the wind so forcible, that they were broken off and fell in flakes to
the deck of the ship."
It is impossible for the mind to conceive the effect of such a galaxy of
curious, and bright, and eminently beautiful combinations as are
sometimes displayed in the arctic regions. None of the fabulous
conceptions of man, even though profoundly elaborated and brightly
gilded with the coruscations of the most sparkling genius and fancy,
ever produced so gorgeous a spectacle as may be witnessed there every
summer day. Four or five suns in the blue sky, with lines and circles
of light shooting from or circling round them! Ice in all its quaint,
majestic, and shining forms, rendered still more quaint and grand by the
influence of refraction; and, by the same power, ships sailing in the
sky, sometimes, as if Nature's laws were abrogated, with their keels
upwards, and their masts pointing to the sea! Walls of pure ice
hundreds of feet high, many miles in extent, clear as crystal, and
sending back the rays of heaven's luminaries in broad blazing beams;
while the icebergs' pinnacles reflect them in sparkling points! White
luminous fogs, like curtains of gauze, too thin to dim the general
brightness, yet dense enough to invest the whole scene with a silver
robe of mystery, and to refract the light and compel it to shine in
great circles of prismatic colours! And everything--from the nature of
the materials of which the gay scenery is composed--either white or
blue, varying in all gradations from the fairest snow to the deepest
azure, save where the rainbow's delicate hues are allowed to intermingle
enough of pink, yellow, purple, orange, and green to relieve the eye and
enable it more fully to appreciate the virgin drapery of the scene. All
this, seen in detail--seen frequently in rapid succession--sometimes
seen almost all at one moment,--all this is absolutely beyond
conception, and utterly beyond adequate description. Yet all this is
seen at times in those realms of ice and snow, which are, as we have
already said, too much represented as the "gloomy, forbidding,
inhospitable polar regions."
There are two sides to every picture. We take leave of this particular
branch of our sun with the remark, that if the shady side of the far
north is dreadfully dark and dreary, its bright side is intensely
brilliant and beautiful.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA--MEDUSAE--FOOD OF THE WHALE--PHOSPHORIC LIGHT--
CAUSE THEREOF--LUMINOSITY OF THE OCEAN.
Reference has elsewhere been made in this volume to the immense amount
of animal life that exists in the ocean, not only in the form of fish of
all sizes, but in that of animalcules, which, although scarcely visible
to the naked eye, are, in some cases, so innumerable as to give a
distinct colouring to the water.
The _Medusae_, or, more familiarly, sea blubbers, are seen in the waters
that lave our own shores. They are of various sizes, from that of a
large plate to a pin-head. They are almost colourless, like clear
jelly, and when carelessly observed, seem to be dead objects drifting
with the tide; but a closer observation shows that they are possessed of
life, though not of a particularly active kind, and that they swim by
alternate contractions and expansions of their bodies. These creatures
constitute a large part of the whale's food. Some of them are flat,
some semi-globular, others are bell-shaped, while some have got little
heads and small fins. Of these last it is said that each little
creature has no fewer than three hundred and sixty thousand minute
suckers on its head with which it seizes its prey. When we think of the
exceeding smallness of the creatures thus preyed upon, and consider the
fact that each little thing must obtain food by making war upon some
creatures still smaller than itself, we are led almost in spite of
ourselves into that mysteriously metaphysical question--infinitesimal
_divisibility_; which may be translated thus--the endless division and
subdivision of atoms. This subject has puzzled the heads of the
profoundest philosophers of all ages; we will not, therefore, puzzle our
readers with it any further.
Scoresby tells us that the colour of the Greenland Sea varies from
ultramarine blue to olive-green, from the purest transparency to
striking opacity; and that these colours are permanent, and do not
depend on the state of the weather, but on the quality of the water. He
observed that whales were found in much greater numbers in the green
than in the blue water; and he found, on examining the former with the
microscope, that its opacity and its colour were due to countless
multitudes of those animalcules on which the whale feeds.
We need scarcely remark that it is utterly beyond the power of man to
form anything approaching to a correct conception of the amount of
_life_ that is thus shown to exist in the ocean. Although it has
pleased the Creator to limit our powers, yet it has also pleased him to
leave the limit of those powers undefined. We may not, indeed, ever
hope in this life to attain to perfect knowledge, nevertheless, by
"searching" we may "find out wisdom;" and certain it is, that, although
there undoubtedly must be a point of knowledge on any given subject
which man cannot reach, there is in man a power incessantly to extend
his knowledge and increase his powers of conception, by each successive
effort that he makes in his course from the cradle to the grave.
Even although we were told the exact number of the little creatures that
inhabit the sea, we could not, by any simple effort of the mind, however
powerful, form a conception of what that number implied. We might shut
ourselves up like the hermits of old, abstract our thoughts from all
other things, and ponder the subject for weeks or months together, and
at the termination of our effort we should be as wise as we were at its
commencement, but no wiser. But by searching round the subject, and
comparing lesser things with greater, although we should still fail to
arrive at a full comprehension of the truth, we may advance our powers
of conception very considerably beyond the point attained by our first
effort; and which point, as we have said, could not be surmounted by a
hair's breadth by the mere exertion of simple or abstract thought.
Dr Scoresby's remarks on the subject of animal life in the ocean, are
so graphic and curious that we extract the passages verbatim from the
admirable memoir of that gentleman, written by his nephew. He says:
"I procured a quantity of snow from a piece of ice that had been washed
by the sea, and was greatly discoloured by the decomposition of some
peculiar substance upon it. A little of this snow dissolved in a
wine-glass appeared perfectly nebulous--the water being found to contain
a great number of semi-transparent spherical substances, with others
resembling small portions of fine hair. On examining these substances
with a compound microscope, I was enabled to make the following
observations:--
"The semi-transparent globules appeared to consist of an animal of the
medusa kind. It was from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch in
diameter. Its surface was marked with twelve distinct patches, or
nebulae, of dots of a brownish colour. These dots were disposed in
pairs, four pairs or sixteen pairs alternately, composing one of the
nebula. The body of the medusa was transparent. When the water
containing these animals was heated, it emitted a very strong odour, in
some respects resembling the smell of oysters when thrown on hot coals,
but much more offensive.
"The fibrous or hair-like substances were more easily examined, being of
a darker colour. They varied in length from a point to one-tenth of an
inch; and when highly magnified, were found beautifully moniliform.
Whether they were living animals, and possessed of locomotion, I could
not ascertain. They possessed the property of decomposing light, and in
some cases showed all the colours of the spectrum very distinctly.
"I afterwards examined the different qualities of sea water, and found
these substances very abundant in that of an olive-green colour; and
also occurring, but in lesser quantity, in the bluish-green water. The
number of medusae in the olive-green water was found to be immense.
They were about one-fourth of an inch asunder. In this proportion, a
cubic inch of water must contain 64; a cubic foot 110,592; a cubic
fathom 23,887,872; and a cubic mile about 23,888,000,000,000,000."
Of course we have, in the last two numbers, reached the utterly
incomprehensible; but Dr Scoresby goes into comparisons which help us a
little, at least to ascertain how hopelessly beyond our conceptions such
numbers are.
"From soundings made in the situation where these animals were found, it
is probable the sea is upwards of a mile in depth; but whether these
substances occupy the whole depth is uncertain. Provided, however, the
depth to which they extend be but two hundred and fifty fathoms, the
above immense number of one species may occur in the space of two miles
square. It may give a better conception of the amount of medusae in
this extent, if we calculate the length of time that would be requisite,
with a certain number of persons, for counting this number. Allowing
that one person could count a million in seven days, which is barely
possible, it would have required that eighty thousand persons should
have started at the creation of the world to complete the enumeration at
the present time!
"What a stupendous idea this gives of the immensity of creation, and of
the bounty of Divine Providence in furnishing such a profusion of life
in a region so remote from the habitations of men!
"The larger portion of these medusae, consisting of transparent
substances of a lemon-yellow colour, and globular form, appeared to
possess very little power of motion. Some of them were seen advancing
by a slight waving motion, at the rate of a hundred and eightieth of an
inch in a second; and others, spinning round with considerable celerity,
gave great interest and liveliness to the examination. But the
progressive motion of the most active, however distinct and rapid it
might appear under a high magnifying power, was, in reality, extremely
slow; for it did not exceed an inch in three minutes. At this rate they
would require one hundred and fifty-one days to travel a nautical mile.
"The vastness of their numbers, and their exceeding minuteness, are
circumstances, discovered in the examination of these animalcules, of
uncommon interest. In a drop of water examined by a power of 28.224
(magnified superficies) there were fifty in number, on an average, in
each square of the micrometer glass, of an eight hundred and fortieth of
an inch; and as the drop occupied a circle on a plate of glass
containing 529 of these squares, there must have been, in this single
drop of water, taken out of the yellowish-green sea, in a place by no
means the most discoloured, about 26,450 animalcules. Hence, reckoning
sixty drops to a dram, there would be a number in a gallon of water
exceeding, by one half the amount of the population of the whole globe!
It gives a powerful conception of the minuteness and wonders of
creation, when we think of more than twenty-six thousand animals living,
obtaining subsistence, and moving perfectly at their ease, without
annoyance to one another, in a single drop of water... A whale requires
a sea, an ocean, to sport in. About one hundred and fifty millions of
these animalcules would have abundant room in a tumbler of water!"
But besides furnishing food to the whale, and, no doubt, to many other
of the inhabitants of the deep, those medusae are the cause of the
phosphorescent light that sometimes glows on the ocean with resplendent
brilliancy. We see this light oftentimes on our own coasts. It is
usually of a pale bluish-white colour, more or less intense, apparently,
according to the condition of the creatures by which it is emitted. It
can only be seen at night. We have seen it on the west coast of
Scotland, so bright that the steamer in which we sailed left behind her
what appeared to be a broad highway of liquid fire.
At times it requires vigorous motion, such as takes place when an oar is
dipped, a stone thrown, or paddle-wheels dashed into the water; but at
other times, the mere motion of the ocean swell, even in calm weather,
is sufficient to stir up the lambent light and cause the crest of every
undulation to glitter as if tipped with burnished silver. In such
circumstances we have seen the ends of the oars of a boat silvered with
it when lifted out of the wave, and the drops which fell from them
before being redipped resembled the most beautiful diamonds.
Mr P.H. Gosse, in his interesting work, "The Ocean," gives the
following account of this luminosity of the sea, as witnessed by himself
on one occasion:
"In a voyage to the Gulf of Mexico, I saw the water in those seas more
splendidly luminous than I had ever observed before. It was indeed a
magnificent sight, to stand on the fore-part of the vessel and watch her
breasting the waves. The mass of water rolled from her bows as white as
milk, studded with those innumerable sparkles of blue light. The
nebulosity instantly separated into small masses, curdled like clouds of
marbles, leaving the water between of its own clear blackness; the
clouds soon subsided, but the sparks remained. Sometimes one of these
points, of greater size and brilliancy than the rest, suddenly burst
into a small cloud of superior whiteness to the mass, and be then lost
in it. The curdling of the milky appearance into clouds and masses, and
its quick subsidence, were what I had never before observed elsewhere."
Many scientific travellers have carefully examined this subject, and we
believe that all agree in referring this beautiful appearance to the
medusae. One gentleman drew a bucketful of water from the sea when it
was in this condition, and found, on examining it in a dark place, that
the little creatures "could be distinctly seen emitting a bright speck
of light. Sometimes this was like a sudden flash, at others appearing
like an oblong or round luminous point, which continued bright for a
short time, like a lamp lit beneath the water and moving through it,
still possessing its definite shape, and then suddenly disappearing.
When the bucket was sharply struck on the outside, there would appear at
once a great number of these luminous bodies, which retained their
brilliant appearance for a few seconds, and then all was dark again.
They evidently appeared to have it under their own will, giving out
their light frequently, at various depths in the water, without any
agitation being given to the bucket. At times might be seen minute but
pretty bright specks of light, darting across a piece of water and then
vanishing; the motion of the light being exactly that of the cyclops
through the water. Upon removing a tumblerful from the bucket, and
taking it to the light, a number of cyclops were accordingly found
swimming and darting about in it."
We have given the above quotation at full length, because it proves, in
an interesting manner, the fact that phosphorescence, or luminosity, of
the sea is actually produced by multitudes of living creatures. We
cannot pass from it, however, without expressing our difference of
opinion in regard to the power of the medusae to emit their light "at
will."
It seems much more probable that the light is the result of passion and
action. When a man's feelings are strongly roused, whether pleasurably
or otherwise, he usually starts into action under a sudden impulse,
which sends the blood violently through his veins, causing his face to
become flushed and _red_. This reddening is not the result of will. It
is the unavoidable result of passionate impulse, and could not possibly
be produced by an effort of the will.
It is well known that electric fluid permeates the bodies of all
animals, more or less; and it is quite conceivable that under the
influence of nervous impulse one creature should become luminous, while
another only becomes red. Man leaps and sings for joy; and the result
is, that the actions cause his countenance to glow with _colour_. The
marine animalcule, experiencing a sudden influx of delight, darts hither
and thither under the strong impulse of its exuberant glee; and the
result is, that its little body gleams with _light_. Vigorous action is
the direct cause of the emission of light in the one case, just as
vigorous action is the direct cause of the suffusion of the countenance
in the other. But in both cases the primary cause is passion--at least
so it seems to us.
No doubt fear as well as joy may create vigorous action, and produce the
same result; but as we know that, as a general rule, there is much more
of joy than of fear dwelling at all times in the hearts of God's
creatures, we can well believe that the amount of luminosity produced in
the sea by the latter passion is immeasurably smaller than that produced
by the former. We are thus, therefore, set free to indulge in the
pleasing reflection that when we behold that magnificent gleaming of the
sea, which almost resembles liquid silver reflecting the stars of
heaven, we are witnessing the frolicsome and joyous gambols of those
myriads of little beings to whom the beneficent Creator has assigned the
ocean as their dwelling-place.
The theory which we have ventured to propound in regard to vigorous
impulse (whether of joy or fear) being the cause of eliciting
luminosity, is supported in some degree by the remark in our last
quotation, that when the bucket was sharply struck, there appeared at
once a number of luminous bodies, which shone for a few seconds, and
then disappeared. Undoubtedly the poor little things got a fright when
their residence was sharply assailed in such an unusual manner; their
energies were roused, and their light emitted. Then, as they gradually
calmed down, their light disappeared.
We are further told that when a drop of sulphuric acid was put into a
tumbler of water, "several bright flashes were seen." This, we venture
to think, was somewhat similar to the putting of a few drops of brandy
and water into the human stomach; the usual result of which is, as we
all know, to produce several bright flashes of wit, if not of light, or
of something at least meant to be remarkably luminous!
But this luminosity is not entirely confined to the minute creatures of
the sea. Some fish have the power of emitting light. Some species of
the shark emit a greenish light; and the sun-fish is said, when seen
down in the sea on a dark night, to glow like a white-hot cannon-ball.
Fish when dead and putrid frequently glow in the dark with a truly
magnificent light, as can be proved by every one who will take the
trouble to procure several kinds of fish, and keep them, for the purpose
of proving the fact, in a dark closet.
Of all the minute inhabitants of the deep, that which is to our mind the
most curious, both as to its nature and its stupendous works, is the
coral insect. This creature is much too important to be dragged in at
the tail of a chapter. We will, therefore, commence its history in a
new one.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
CORAL INSECTS AND CORAL ISLANDS--POLYNESIA--OPERATIONS OF THE CORAL
INSECT--GROWTH OF CORAL REEFS.
Many of the large and beautiful islands that stud the Pacific Ocean,
like emeralds in a field of blue, are _artificial_; that is to say, they
were made by artists--they were actually _built_ by _artisans_!
These artisans are the coral insects; and as they not only affect the
face of the sea by raising large islands above it, but also, in
consequence of their labours, assist in causing the circulation of the
ocean, we think they are justly entitled to very special attention.
The great archipelago called Polynesia covers an area of the Pacific
nearly 5000 miles in length, and not far short of 2000 in breadth. Some
of the islands of this group are of volcanic origin, and some are
crystal; but by far the greater number are of coral formation--the work
of those curious little insects, which are so small that they inhabit a
dwelling sometimes little larger than a pin-point.
The manner in which these islands are made is, to some extent, a matter
of uncertainty. The most generally received opinion is, that the
insects fasten round the summit of a submarine mountain, and build
upwards until they reach the surface of the sea, where they die, and
their labours cease. As, however, the sea is sometimes unfathomable
close to those islands, it has been supposed that the submarine islands
on which the corallines began to build have gradually subsided, and
that, as they did so, the insects always built a little more, so as to
keep the top of their structures on a level with the sea. Above the sea
they cannot build. To be washed by the waves is essential to their
existence.
We do not think this a very satisfactory theory, because it supposes a
prolonged subsiding of these islands, and then an unaccountably sudden
stoppage. For although the corallines might continue to build during
the whole time of subsidence, it were utterly impossible that the coral
_island_, with its luxuriant herbage, could be formed until that
subsidence should have ceased. The manner in which the islands are
formed makes this obvious.
When the coral reef, as it is called, reaches the surface, it advances
no further. Soon the action of the waves breaks off the branches of the
upper portions of coral, which are tossed upon the reef, and pulverised
into fine sand. This goes on increasing until the island rises a little
above the waves.
When this happens, birds alight there; sea-drift is carried thither;
seeds are blown to it by the wind; and gradually a few green blades
arise. From this little beginning it is easy to conceive the process by
which at last a flourishing island springs up. At the same time, it is
not easy to see how such islands could ever be formed on the supposition
that the submarine rocks on which they were founded were perpetually
subsiding.
But be that as it may, we have no difficulty in understanding the fact
that the coral insect does build those islands. It possesses the power
of secreting the lime held in solution by sea water, and depositing the
same on the rocks below the waves. The coral rock is the edifice of the
coralline. The insect itself is a soft and very minute worm, which,
when washed by the waves, thrusts its head out of its tiny little door,
and spreading abroad its numerous feelers, so that it resembles a
beautiful little star, moves these about as if enjoying itself--though,
doubtless, it is actually engaged in the process of manufacturing its
little atom of coral rock.
It is extremely interesting to think of the immense power of _union_
thus exhibited. Singly, those little creatures could not produce a
sufficient result to attract the attention of any creature save such as
chanced to come in direct and close contact with its little cell.
United, they have formed vast islands, which have become the abode of
man, and which, in the aggregate, form no inconsiderable portion of the
globe.
The consideration of this leads us to perceive that God has ordained
that units cannot, separately, accomplish much; and that united effort,
in order to be successful, requires the harmonious action of units. "A
house divided against itself cannot stand." The innumerable and
eminently beautiful isles of the Pacific had never stood where they now
stand if the curious, and separately insignificant, little architects
that reared them had not wrought unitedly upon a fixed and systematic
plan--each insect working its utmost from the hour of its birth until
that of its death.
There are various kinds of coral insects, which form varied species of
coral rock. Some kinds of coral assume the form of rounded masses; some
are like a branching shrub; others are in layers, or thin plates; and
some are shaped like the human brain, from which they derive their
name--brainstones. These different kinds differ also in colour, and
thus present a beautiful appearance when seen at the bottom of clear and
shallow water.
In regard to the rate at which the corallines build their cells there is
some diversity of opinion--some asserting that the process is
imperceptible, while others state as positively that it is rapid. There
can be no doubt that some localities and positions are more favourable
to the growth of coral than others. Dr Allan, while at Madagascar,
made several experiments to test this. He selected several masses of
coral, each weighing about ten pounds, and of different species. These
he placed three feet below the surface of the sea, and staked them in to
prevent removal. In a little more than six months they were found to
have risen nearly to the surface, and to have attached themselves to the
solid rock.
There is also a case mentioned of a ship in the Persian Gulf which, in
the course of twenty months, had her copper encased with living coral to
the thickness of two feet.
On the other hand, it is asserted, and we doubt not with equal truth,
that many reefs do not seem to increase in size in the course of many
years.
When a coral reef has reached the surface, the formation of an island
instantly begins; but it necessarily takes a long time ere this island
becomes habitable by man. Among the first plants that raise their heads
to the sea-breeze is the graceful cocoa-nut palm. This tree is
exceedingly hardy, and is found growing on reefs which are so low that
at a distance the trees seem to be standing on the surface of the water.
Indeed many of them spring out of the pure white sand, and their roots
are washed perpetually by the salt spray. Nevertheless, the fruit of
such trees is sweet and good.
Coral islands of the kind we have just described seldom rise more than a
few feet above the level of the sea; but most of them are clothed with
luxuriant vegetation.
We might easily fill a volume on the subject of the ocean's inhabitants,
small and great; but we think the few to which we have made reference is
sufficient for the purpose of showing that one set of creatures accounts
for that strange luminosity of the ocean which is seen at times in all
marine parts of the globe, while another set accounts not only for the
sudden appearance of coral islands in the sea where no such islands
existed in days of old, but also, partly, for that circulation of the
waters of the ocean which is absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of
all the creatures on this earth.
There are other animals in the sea, besides medusae, which assist in
giving luminosity to its waters; and there are other insects, besides
corallines, which extract its lime, destroy its equilibrium, and assist
in causing its perpetual motion; but the two species which we have
described are the best types of the respective classes to which they
belong.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
VOLCANIC ISLANDS--OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENTS--"ATLANTIS"--INSTANCE OF THE
FORMATION OF A VOLCANIC ISLAND--CONCLUSION.
In the last chapter we described the manner in which a certain class of
islands in the South Seas are formed; in the present we will make a few
observations on another class, which have sprung up from the bottom of
the sea, as if by magic, under the irresistible influence of fire.
There are volcanoes in the sea, as well as on the land; and these
volcanoes have in former times up-heaved huge masses of land so as to
form large islands, while in other cases they have caused islands
formerly in existence to subside and disappear.
In the writings of the ancients we find reference made to an island
which, if it ever did exist, now exists no longer. It was situated
opposite the Straits of Gibraltar, was nearly two hundred miles in
length, and was called "Atlantis"--hence the name of the Atlantic Ocean.
Many believe, and with some reason, we think, that this island was not
altogether a myth, although much that is said of it is undoubtedly
fabulous.
Plato tells us that it was a large island in the Western Ocean, situated
before or opposite to the Straits of Gades; and that out of this island
there was an easy passage into some others which lay near a large
continent, exceeding in bigness all Europe and Asia. So far Plato may
have told the truth, and from this passage it is conjectured that the
existence of the continent of America was known to the ancients. But he
goes on, immediately after, to draw upon his imagination, and to tell us
that Neptune settled on this island, and that his posterity dwelt there
for a period of nine thousand years in the midst of fertility and
abundance. But, not content with their ample possessions and prolific
soil, they went over to Africa and Europe, and even penetrated into
Asia, bent on conquest.
Passing from this mixture of probable truth and undoubted fable, Plato
then asserts that the island of Atlantis finally sank and disappeared.
This may or may not be true, but there is more reason for our crediting
the statement than many people would suppose. Certain it is that no
such island exists at the present time, but it is believed by some that
the Azores, which are volcanic in their formation, are the summits of
the mountain ranges of the Atlantis of the ancients.
But the best evidence we have of the possible existence of such an
island is the fact that in modern times an island has been _seen_ to
rise out of the sea, and, after a time, to disappear, under the
influence of volcanic action.
This remarkable event is related by Captain Tillard, an officer of the
British Navy, who saw it on the 12th of June 1811, when approaching the
island of St. Michael. On this occasion smoke was seen to rise from the
surface of the sea, and, soon after, showers of cinders to burst forth.
We cannot do better than give the captain's own words, as follows:
"Imagine an immense body of smoke rising from the sea, the surface of
which was marked by the silvery rippling of the waves. In a quiescent
state it had the appearance of a circular cloud revolving on the water,
like a horizontal wheel, in various and irregular involutions, expanding
itself gradually on the lee side; when, suddenly, a column of the
blackest cinders, ashes, and stones, would shoot up in the form of a
spire, at an angle of from ten to twenty degrees from a perpendicular
line, the angle of inclination being universally to windward. This was
rapidly succeeded by a second, third, and fourth shower, each acquiring
greater velocity, and overtopping the other, till they had attained an
altitude as much above the level of our eye as the sea was below it.
"As the impetus with which the several columns were severally propelled
diminished, and their ascending motion had nearly ceased, they broke
into various branches resembling a group of pines. These again formed
themselves into festoons of white feathery smoke, in the most fanciful
manner imaginable, intermixed with the finest particles of falling
ashes; which at one time assumed the appearance of innumerable plumes of
black and white ostrich feathers surmounting each other; at another,
that of the light wavy branches of a weeping willow.
"During these bursts the most vivid flashes of lightning continually
issued from the densest part of the volcano; and the cloud of smoke now
ascending to an altitude much above the highest point to which the ashes
were projected, rolled off in large masses of fleecy clouds, gradually
expanding themselves before the wind, in a direction nearly horizontal,
and drawing up to them a quantity of water-spouts, which formed a most
beautiful and striking addition to the general appearance of the scene."
Such is the description given of this submarine volcano in action; and
the crater which was thrown up at the time was about twenty feet above
the level of the sea. As Captain Tillard could not, however, delay his
voyage to make further observations at that time, the action that
subsequently took place is not known; but its results were seen shortly
afterwards.
In about three weeks after the date of his passing the spot, Captain
Tillard returned to it and found an island of about a mile in
circumference, with a height of between two and three hundred feet at
its highest point. There was no violent eruption going on, although the
craters still emitted smoke. He therefore landed, and, on reaching the
largest crater, found it to be full of boiling water, which overflowed
and found its way to the ocean in a river of about six yards in width.
This island, however, was not a permanent addition to the world's
archipelago. It sank into the ocean again, and disappeared in October
of the same year in which it rose.
In commencing this little book we set out with the intention of rambling
hither and thither, among things that relate to the sea, without regard
to order. We have carried out our intention; and now, at the close of
our task, find that the more we listen to the Ocean's Voice, the more we
find its tale to be interminable, though the reverse of uninteresting.
In these rambles we have sought to treat chiefly of those scientific
facts relating to the sea and the atmospheric ocean, which are not so
frequently made the subject of books for the young, as are the wild and
daring deeds of man upon the surface of the mighty deep.
It is not sufficient that man should become acquainted with the doings
of his fellows on the sea. This is but one branch of general knowledge,
and a very secondary one compared with that infinitely higher branch
which treats of the workings of the Almighty in the ocean; workings
which render it what it is--not merely a means of commercial enterprise
for man and a home for fish, but also a great purifier and revivifier of
the earth and sweetener of the atmosphere. God is the great first cause
of all that is and that operates in the universe. It were an act of
presumption to inquire into what we may term the first acts of the
Almighty's power. But there is no presumption--on the contrary there is
propriety, as well as the highest gratification of which the human mind
is capable--in penetrating through the paths of knowledge up to that
first series of second causes which circle like a glory round the
fountain-head. We may not put the question, "How did God create all
things out of nothing?" but, all things having been created, it is quite
legitimate to inquire how the circles of their manifold operations are
carried on, and in what respect the things that be do affect each other.
No book that has of late years issued from the press treats more
eloquently and interestingly of such subjects of inquiry than that
admirable work of Captain Maury of the United States Navy, entitled "The
Physical Geography of the Sea." Much of the substance of what we have
written has been culled from the pages of that fascinating volume. But
we have merely plucked one or two leaves, as it were, and presented them
to our readers in the hope that they may be tempted by their fragrance
to pluck the flower. The mysteries of the atmospheric and aqueous
oceans are here treated of fully, yet so agreeably, that one is
frequently apt to fancy one is perusing the pages of romance.
In our own little book we have been compelled to skim lightly, and, in
many places, to pass over subjects of great interest.
As for other subjects connected with the sea, of which we may not treat,
they are innumerable. Of the sea-weeds that clothe the bottom of the
deep with the rich profusion and glowing colours of the gardens of
earth--of the myriads of animalcules (besides those we have mentioned)
that disport in its waters and fill the abyss with life and lambent
fire--of the great whales and other huge creatures that revel in its
depths and lash its waters in their terrible might--of these and a host
of kindred subjects, our space forbids our saying more than that the
Voice of Ocean has much to tell us in regard to them, and in regard to
the provident care of their beneficent Creator.
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