Indian Ocean

“ All over our globe, from pole to pole, and from the Indian Ocean round to the east, back to the Indian Ocean again, is one vast world of waters, with inlets and land-locked seas bordering its margins, and rivers pouring into its depths. In the past ages of the world these rivers and coasts and inlets have varied innumerable times, but the great ocean-mother has always been there to bear the increasingly-varied forms in her bosom, and to enable them to wander where best they could preserve life. ”

“ Soon the city has disappeared and we are out on the Indian Ocean. The weather is fine; there is no sea on, only the faintest swell; sailing boats lie motionless waiting for a wind, and only a faint breeze renews the air under the awnings of the promenade deck. It is so warm and sultry that starched shirts and collars become damp and limp after a couple of hours. We gradually draw off from the coast, but still the mountain chain known as the Western Ghâts, which extends to the southern extremity of India, is visible. ”

“ Southern India penetrates the Indian Ocean and is so near the Equator that the inhabitants swelter under the heat of a perpetual summer, while the rocky sentinels that guard the northern frontier are clad in the ice of an eternal winter. As might be expected in a land which has every altitude from sea level to nearly thirty thousand feet, one finds all varieties of vegetation, from the delicate fern of the tropics to the sturdy edelweiss that blossoms in the snow—from the grain and orchards of Agra, Oudh and the Punjab to the cotton, rice and fruits of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. ”

“ Nevertheless, by what I gathered from the stranger Indians at Akenatzy of their Voyage by Sea to the very Mountains from a far distant Northwest Country, I am brought over to their opinion who think that the Indian Ocean does stretch an Arm or Bay from California into the Continent as far as the Apalatæan Mountains, answerable to the Gulfs of Florida and Mexico on this side. Yet I am far from believing with some, that such great and Navigable Rivers are to be found on the other side the Apalatæans falling into the Indian Ocean, as those which run from them to the Eastward. ”

“ The Indian Ocean receives few large rivers, the chief being the Zambezi, the Shat-el-Arab, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Irawadi. Murray estimates the total land area draining to the Indian Ocean at 5,050,000 geographical square miles, almost the same as that draining to the Pacific. The annual rainfall draining from this area is estimated at 4380 cubic miles. ”

“ Business had carried me to the East Indies. I had visited Madras, whence I had proceeded to Calcutta, and from Calcutta I had made my way to Rangoon. I stayed in that place a month, by which time my health had suffered so greatly from the climate that I made up my mind to return to Europe in a sailing ship, that I might spend many long weeks among the fresh breezes of the sea, and get all the benefit I could out of the incessant changes of climate which a voyage down the Indian Ocean, and round the Cape of Good Hope, and up the two Atlantics provides you with. ”

“ How the early navigators so successfully avoided the rocks and shoals of this coast, how they managed to weather the confusing tides, hurricanes, and monsoons, is a mystery, while so many of our stoutest ships, guided by experienced seamen, and protected by all modern appliances, have been lost in the same tracks. Is it possible that we of to-day are no better navigators than those who sailed the Indian Ocean three thousand years ago? ”

“ Economy Indian Ocean Economy - overview: The Indian Ocean provides major sea routes connecting the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia with Europe and the Americas. It carries a particularly heavy traffic of petroleum and petroleum products from the oilfields of the Persian Gulf and Indonesia. Its fish are of great and growing importance to the bordering countries for domestic consumption and export. Fishing fleets from Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan also exploit the Indian Ocean, mainly for shrimp and tuna. ”

“ In the same manner, then, as the Kurile and Japan Islands, the Lew-Chews, and Formosa, are but the more elevated parts of a great mountain-chain that rises on the eastern edge of the continent of Asia, so these islands are only the tops of another great chain which rises on a part of the southern border of the same continent, and indicates where the wide and deep basin of the Indian Ocean commences. ”

“ In our voyage from the Gulf of Aden to Colombo we have made a great circuit of the Indian Ocean, yet from beginning to end we have never lost touch with Indian trade and Indian people. The islands and ports which we have visited are only to be understood as parts of a larger whole, united not divided by the sea. ”

“ India lies directly north of the great Indian Ocean, and the lower part of it comes within the tropical belt lying south of the Tropic of Cancer. During the summer season here the earth stores more heat during the day than it radiates or loses during the night. This causes the wind to blow in a northerly direction from the sea both day and night for six months each year, from April to October. During these months the land is continually heated day and night to a higher temperature than the water in the ocean south of it. ”

“ Mightiest among rivers, it is the connecting link of adverse climates and contrasted races; and, while at its northern source the fur-clad Indian shivers in the cold, where it mingles with the ocean, the growth of the tropics springs along its banks, and the panting negro cools his limbs in its refreshing waters. ”

“ Indian Ocean of our richly laden India-men seems in a fair way to be accomplished; and where, save by the contemptuous forbearance of England and France, can our cruisers find a port for supplies, repairs, or information? ”

“ What a powerful engine is the atmosphere and how nicely adjusted must be all the cogs, and wheels, and springs, and compensations of this exquisite piece of machinery, that it never wears out nor breaks down, nor fails to do its work at the right time and in the right way. The abstract logs at the Observatory in Washington show that the water of the Indian Ocean is warmer than that of any other sea; therefore it may be inferred that the evaporation from it is also greater. The North Indian Ocean contains about 4,500,000 square miles, while its Asiatic water-shed contains an area of 2,500,000. ”

“ The enchanting marine fauna and flora of the Indian Ocean are indeed marvelous to one accustomed only to the cold, sandy ocean-bed of northern latitudes. About three fourths of all kinds of seaweed are now classed as animal, like the sponge, the coral, and the sea-anemones; only one fourth are vegetable. Professor Rene Bache tells us that the most thickly populated tropical jungle does not compare in wealth of animal and vegetable life with a coral reef. ”

“ Along this thoroughfare Indian colonists, traders, and priests carried the elements of Indian civilization to the easternmost Sunda Isles; and Oriental wares, sciences and religions moved westward to the margin of Europe and Africa. The Indian Ocean produced a civilization of its own, with which it colored a vast semi-circle of land reaching from Java to Abyssinia, and more faintly, owing to the wider divergence of race, the further stretch from Abyssinia to Mozambique. ”

“ In a word, we kept on our course to the south, a little westerly, till we passed the south tropic, where we found the winds variable; and now we stood away fair west, and held it out for about twenty days, when we discovered land right ahead, and on our larboard bow; we made directly to the shore, being willing to take all advantages now for supplying ourselves with fresh provisions and water, knowing we were now entering on that vast unknown Indian Ocean, perhaps the greatest sea on the globe, having, with very little interruption of islands, a continued sea quite round the globe. ”

“ Again, in the Indian Ocean there is a space of ocean 1500 miles in length, including three archipelagoes, in which every island is low and of coral formation. From the fact of the reef-building corals not living at great depths, it is absolutely certain that throughout these vast areas, wherever there is now an atoll, a foundation must have originally existed within a depth of from 20 to 30 fathoms from the surface. ”

“ The more insular condition at this period of Australia, India, and North Africa, with the depression and probable fertility of the Central Asiatic plateau, would lead to the Indian Ocean being traversed by regular trade-winds instead of by variable monsoons, and thus the constant vis a tergo, which is so efficient in the Atlantic, would keep up a steady and powerful current towards the northern parts of the Indian Ocean, and thence through the midst of the European archipelago to the northern seas. ”

“ Their factors penetrated Central and Southern Asia, and became active participants in the remunerative traffic of those regions. The prized productions of the islands in the Indian Ocean, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, were transported by them to Venice and distributed through Europe. Although the ocean along the western and southern coast of Africa to the East was believed to be navigable, no attempt was made in the fourteenth century to sail by it to the Moluccas or Spice Islands. ”

“ The south-east trades passing into south-west monsoons.—But any navigator who, during the summer months, has occasion to traverse the Indian Ocean from north to south, may find that it is so. The outward-bound Indiaman, who, when on his way to Calcutta, crosses the equator in August, fur example, will find the south-east trades, as he approaches the line, to haul more and more to the south. As he advances still farther north they get to the west of south. ”

“ It is not only in the reefs of the Indian Ocean, however, but in many of the archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean, where there is evidence of very extensive elevation of the land areas in the neighbourhood of atolls and barrier reefs, that the subsidence-theory does not satisfactorily account for all the observed facts. ”

“ The attractions offered by such products of tropical seas are by no means limited to the untutored tastes of the American Indian. In India, China, and Siam, the Pyrum, and other large and beautiful shells of the Indian Ocean, are no less highly prized by the natives, not only as an easily wrought material for implements and personal ornaments ”

“ But if the waters of the Indian Ocean have remained completely distinct from those of the Mediterranean since the Eocene epoch, with the exception perhaps of a shallow channel flooded in Quaternary times, the intervening barrier has at last been removed by the hand of man. ”

“ The ground for anchorage is of the very best kind, sand without coral, which last chafes the cables all over the Red Sea.
On the 30th, at seven o’clock in the morning, with a gentle but steady wind at west, we sailed for the mouth of the 311 Indian Ocean. Our Rais became more lively and bolder as he approached his own coast, and offered to carry me for nothing, if I would go home with him to Sheher, but I had already enough upon my hand. It is, however, a voyage some man of knowledge and enterprise should attempt, as the country and the manners of the people are very little known. ”

“ An estimated 40% of the world's offshore oil production comes from the Indian Ocean. Beach sands rich in heavy minerals and offshore placer deposits are actively exploited by bordering countries, particularly India, South Africa, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. ”

“ "I suppose that, after visiting the curious coasts of Arabia and Egypt, the Nautilus will go down the Indian Ocean again, perhaps cross the Channel of Mozambique, perhaps off the Mascarenhas, so as to gain the Cape of Good Hope." ”

“ The later deposits found on its shores, two or three hundred feet above the sea level, contain no remains older than those of the present fauna; while, as I have already mentioned, the valley of the adjacent delta of the Nile was a gulf of the sea in miocene times. But there is not a particle of evidence that the change of relative level which admitted the waters of the Indian Ocean between Arabia and Africa, took place any faster than that which is now going on in Greenland and Scandinavia, and which has left their inhabitants undisturbed. ”

“ In the south-east, however, the author has broken through Ptolemy’s encircling barrier, and has thus opened a way from the Indicum mare to an outer ocean where room has been found for Seilam, Iava and far Quinsai. The eastern edge of his Oekumene lies 205° to the east of Lisbon (196° E. of Greenwich) .464 The only original features within the Indian Ocean are a peninsular India, which is made to project from Ptolemy’s old coastline to the west of Taprobana, with a town, “Colochuti”, and the islands of Madagascar and Tangibar lying far out at sea in lat. ”

“ As the Indian, as a guide through the almost impenetrable forests was of great aid to the early settlers, so also was the canoe of the Indian a great service. Of course the white man crossed the ocean in larger boats, but when it came to travelling from point to point, after reaching America, the lighter craft of the Indians was the only possible means of water travel, for the numerous falls or [229] rapids, and the frequent portages between distinct water systems, made the use of a heavy boat impossible. ”

“ Could it have passed away in electric sheets, as is sometimes the case with regard to the typhoons of the Indian Ocean? ”

“ The Indians are busy launching their canoes, preparing war against the candle-fish, which they catch when they come to the surface to sport in the moonlight. As the rising moon now clears the shadow of the hills, her rays slant down on the green sea, just rippled by the land-breeze. And now, like a vast sheet of pearly nacre, we may see the glittering shoals of the fish—the water seems alive with them. Out glides the dusky Indian fleet, the paddles stealthily plied by hands far too experienced to let a splash be heard. ”