North Sea

“ The North Sea is a cruel, ruthless body of water, and a stumbling-block to passengers. I had travelled to the Cape and back, and scarcely felt inconvenience; but here, one day out from England, I was treated to such a pitching and a rolling and a tumbling that my very soul refused comfort, and I lay and wished I was dead like any novice upon shipboard; and so did Jack, which was a great consolation to me, and did me more good than all the ministrations of the benevolent chief steward and the encouragement of kind Captain Edwards. ”

“ There are no mountains to suggest the sense of remoteness and mystery; and the grey North Sea, with its sands and mud-flats, is rather a fact to be accepted, a foe to be struggled with, in a grim matter-of-course way from day to day, than the weird terror that the ocean is to more imaginative peoples. ”

“ It is not only sea you are looking at, it is ocean: ocean in its full depth within a few miles of the shore, and the blueness of deep water is a very different thing from the blue of the Irish Channel or the English, to say nothing of the yellowish waters of the North Sea. And the wash of waves there, even on a calm day, has in it a slow, heavy rhythm, a sense of power which rocks and soothes the senses. But to face that sea on that coast, not only rockbound but flanked with a line of reefs and islands, in hooker or pookaun or canvas-covered curragh, is an enterprise that might well dismay. ”

“ Yet shall your names ring on in England's story,
⁠You who were the prophets of the mighty years to be,
Drake, Blake and Nelson, thundering down the ages,
⁠Captains adventurous, the Masters of the Sea.
Norah M. Holland
NORTH SEA
DAWN on the drab North Sea!—
Colourless, cold, and depressing,
With the sun that we long to see
Refraining from his blessing.
To the westward—sombre as doom:
To the eastward—grey and foreboding:
Comes a low, vibrating boom—
The sound of a mine exploding.
Day on the drear North Sea!—
Wearisome, drab, and relentless.
The low clouds swiftly flee ”

“ Or take a gale of wind blowing for a week, keeping the fisherman waiting and waiting for a spell of moderate weather to fetch his ground. To be hove-to in a smack in the North Sea is such a dance as you must endure—not for a day, but for several days together—to understand. ”

“ We beat clear of the latitude of roaring gales blind with snow, and mountainous ice-islands like cities of alabaster in ruins, and seas ridging in thunder and foam to the height of our mizzentop, and heading north blew under wide wings of studding sails towards the sun, every day sinking some southern stars out of sight, and every night lifting above the sea-line some gem of the heavens dear to northern eyes. ”

“ The sea, as if transformed by enchantment, rolled its free waves at my feet, and beyond the range of vision to the eastward. Islands, of various shape and size, overspread its surface; and the northern land terminated to the eye in a bold and lofty cape, bearing east-north-east, thirty or forty miles distant, while the continental coast trended away south-east. I stood in fact on a remarkable headland at the eastern outlet of an ice-obstructed strait. ”

“ All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin'
⁠In the Winter's weather off the North Sea ground.
It's well we've learned to laugh at fear—the sea has taught us how;
It's well we've shaken hands with death—we'll not be strangers now,
With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow,
⁠An' the black spawn swimmin' on the North Sea ground.
Good luck to all our fightin' ships that rule the English sea;
Good luck to our brave merchantmen wherever they may be;
The sea it is their highway, an' we've got to sweep it free
⁠For the ships passin' over the North Sea ground. ”

“ The waves of the cold North Sea.
Right across from Helgoland to meet the English coast,
Lie better than the likes of we,—
Men that lived in many ways, but went to join the host
That are buried by the cold North Sea.
Rig along the life-lines, double-stay the rails,
Lest the Storm-King call for a fee;
For if any man should slip, through the rolling of the ship,
He'd be lost in the cold North Sea. 227
We are heading to the gale, and the driving of the sleet,
And we're far to the east of Three.
Hey! you German sailormen, here's the British Fleet
Waiting in the cold North Sea. ”

“ The North Sea, the Bay of Biscay, and the Mediterranean afforded for the time an ample field for the training of Englishmen in the arts of trade and seamanship. They saw the world, and rubbed shoulders with the nations of Europe; acquiring in the process a pride in themselves and a talent for dealing with their fellow men, which have been incalculable but nevertheless important factors in their subsequent development. ”

“ Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea-gash, which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing. The very ribs of the solid earth, with the foundations of the sea, would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us at one view the empty cradle of the ocean.... ”

“ Referring to the chart, we find that the North Sea is surrounded with land, excepting at two inlets or apertures, the one extending about 100 leagues, between the Orkney Islands and the Norwegian coast, and the other between Dover and Calais, which is of the width of seven leagues. The aggregate waterway of these two passages forms the track for the tidal waters, and also for the surplus waters produced during storms which affect the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. ”

“ The sea is no less mournful than the coast. It corresponds closely to one's ideas of the North Sea, formed by reading about the superstitious terrors of the ancients, who believed it to be driven by eternal winds and peopled by gigantic monsters. ”

“ The day was beautifully clear, the sea open as far as the eye could stretch to the northward, and the "busy hum" of our people's voices could at times be heard mingling with the cheerful though fantastic songs with which the Greenland sailors are accustomed at once to beguile their labour, and to keep the necessary time in the action of sawing the ice. ”

“ Every coast has developed [Pg 131] its own particular type, although, of course, the fundamentals of their construction are basic and permit of little change. Many of them cross the North Sea, and consequently must be seaworthy, for the North Sea has a habit of being rough. The Irish Sea is filled with them—of many shapes and sizes. European ports seem always crowded with these little ships, which steam about their business with a sort of jaunty cocksureness that is amusing in smooth waters. ”

“ But unlike the captains and conquerors of the South, the explorers have {3} come and gone and left behind no trace of their passage. Their hopes of a land of gold, their vision of a new sea-way round the world, are among the forgotten dreams of the past. Robbed of its empty secret, the North still stretches silent and untenanted with nothing but the splendid record of human courage to illuminate its annals. ”

“ The prevailing weather of the North Atlantic is typical of the way in which the West Wind rules his realm on which the sun never sets. North Atlantic is the heart of a great empire. It is the part of the West Wind's dominions most thickly populated with generations of fine ships and hardy men. Heroic deeds and adventurous exploits have been performed there, within the very stronghold of his sway. The best sailors in the world have been born and bred under the shadow of his sceptre, learning to manage their ships with skill and audacity before the steps of his stormy throne. ”

“ So, too, the North Sea has at one time exposed Britain to attack from the Danish and Norwegian lords of the sea, and at other times protected her from powerful continental enemies. It may indeed be said that in surrounding Europe by the sea on three sides, Nature has drawn the main lines which the course of events on this smallest but most important of the continents has had to follow. ”

“ For the first time the eyes of a European rested upon that portion of the universal sea surrounding the North Pole which washes the northern coast of America; for the first time the white man realized the existence of yet another ocean—an ocean which must henceforth replace the fabulous unbroken masses of land figuring on all maps between the most northerly limit reached by explorers and the North Pole. ”

“ North-East and North-West Passages, the name given to the sea-routes through the Arctic Ocean, the former by the N. of Europe and Asia and the latter by the N. of North America, which the northern nations were ambitious to open up into the Pacific, the access to which by the Capes in the S. was in possession of the fleets of Spain and Portugal; the attempts to achieve it cost much money and much life, and realised no permanent material advantage. ”

“ This association consists of an extraordinary elevation of the level of the North Sea, from the long continuance of certain winds in the Atlantic, with a violent storm occurring during the tides of the new or full moon; for then the sea rises above the level of all the marsches; and before they were secured against such attacks, the waves rolling over them, and tearing away the grass which had bound their surface, they were reduced to the state of mere [359] banks of sand and mud, whence they had been drawn, by the long course of ordinary causes. ”

“ Downward movements have sometimes affected a considerable section of a continent, letting in a shallow epicontinental sea upon it, such, for example, as the North Sea upon the northwestern border of the continent of Europe, and Hudson Bay upon the northeastern part of North America. ”

“ There are other changes also that have taken place in the German Ocean, which must have exerted immense influence on the tides when we remember that a north-east wind will materially heighten the tidal lever by forcing up the water of the North Sea. ”

“ Altercations with Hun seaplanes were by no means uncommon, and their novelty soon wore off.
The North Sea is not celebrated for its clear weather, and in it one's horizontal range of vision is frequently restricted to four miles or less. The vertical visibility, when the clouds are lying low, is sometimes a few hundred feet, while in summer the absence of wind and the heat of the sun often bring fog or a luminous low-lying haze. ”

“ In the Pleiocene age the North Sea extended, as we have shown in Fig 10, over a large part of Norfolk and Suffolk. At its close this area was lifted up above the waves, and probably the greater part of it became dry land, over which the early Pleistocene mammalia roamed with complete freedom, leaving their remains in the river deposits, to be dredged up by the fishermen of the present time in the North Sea in incredible numbers. ”

“ Its proper home is the North Sea, especially on the coasts of Norway, Denmark, Great Britain and Ireland, it occurs in great abundance, generally at some distance from the land, in depths varying between 50 and 100 fathoms. During the winter months it approaches the shores, when great numbers are caught by means of long lines. ”

“ On some parts of the coast-line of the east of England, where the rock is easily worn away, the sea advances on the land at a rate of two or three feet every year. Towns and villages which existed a few centuries ago, have one by one disappeared, and their sites are now a long way out under the restless waters of the North Sea. ”

“ The Story of a North Sea Fisher Boy. By Robert Leighton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00.
A description of life on the wild North Sea—the hero being a parson’s son who is appreciated on board a Lowestoft fishing lugger. The lad has to suffer many buffets from his shipmates, while the storms and dangers which he braved on board the “North Star” are set forth with minute knowledge and intense power. The wreck of the “Golden Fleece” forms the climax to a thrilling series of desperate mischances. ”

“ Fullerton, and I know nothing about ships, but I understand your vessels are all sailers. Is that the proper word? You depend on the wind entirely. How would you manage if you took a man on board right up, or down, the North Sea?—I don't know which is up and which is down; but, any way, you want to run from one end to the other. How would you manage if you had a very foul wind after your man got cured? ”

“ A sailor semaphored with his arms, and the commander of the mine-sweeper sent a message back, and the submarine passed slowly on her way.
"If some of those people at home and abroad at their firesides realised what the men at sea have to suffer to keep this coast free they might have a different way of talking," declared the commander, now taking to his much-burned old pipe. "Those chaps that have just come in have [30] had a week without any sleep—or next to none—and their food has all been canned stuff. There are many persons who think the North Sea's a pond—same as they do over in America." ”

“ The North is thoroughly maritime, and in the end must possess a solid and permanent supremacy on the sea. The men of Cape Cod, the fishermen of Cape Ann, and the hardy sailors who swarm from the hundred islands and bays of Maine, are not to be driven from their own element by the proud planters of the South. Naval habits and naval strength go hand in hand. And in estimating the resources of any power, the first question is, Has she sailors,—not men of the land, but men of the sea? ”

“ These thoughtful contrivances demand thoughtful answers and result in an encounter of wits such as the world will probably never see again upon the chequer-board of the seas. But not wits alone are sufficient, and the pieces in the game are numerous. Bear in mind that the area of the North Sea alone is greater than Germany. ”