Pacific Ocean

“ And how much more difficult our task to describe the sempiternal beauties of this favoured locality?
Immediately beneath on the left the placid waters of the harbour lie sleeping in drowsiness, sinuously wending their course along through and among sandbanks and rocky isles, bluff headlands and receding bays, until absorbed in the great Pacific they cease to be recognised. Away to the right the majestic ocean spreads, its limitless bosom wide open to the gaze, so that far as the eye can reach any object on its surface can be descried. ”

“ To cross the Pacific Ocean, even under the most favorable circumstances, brings you for many days close to nature, and you realize the vastness of the sea. Slowly but surely the mark of my little ship's course on the track-chart reached out on the ocean and across it, while at her utmost speed she marked with her keel still slowly the sea that carried her. ”

“ The Pacific Ocean, within the south tropic, repeatedly traversed, in every direction, was found to swarm with a seemingly endless profusion of habitable spots of land. Islands scattered through the amazing space of near fourscore degrees of longitude, separated at various distances, or grouped in numerous clusters, have, at their approach, as it were, started into existence; and such ample accounts have been brought home concerning them and their inhabitants, as may serve every useful purpose of enquiry ”

“ The winds, and the clouds now take charge of the new island, or continent, and begin to prepare it for vegetation, and the habitation of man, and animals. The Pacific Ocean, within the tropics is, par excellence, the coral sea, and the navigator of that ocean is familiar with the phenomenon, which I am about to describe. In the midst of a clear sky, the mariner sometimes discovers on the verge of the horizon, a light, fleecy cloud, and as he sails toward it, he is surprised to find that it scarcely alters its [Pg 172] position. ”

“ The Pacific Ocean is ringed by some of the most populous, dynamic, and promising countries the world has ever known. So rapid has the progress been in this region that the new Pacific community has come to exemplify the ideals of growth and prosperity. ”

“ Nevertheless its very mystery and vastness give to the Pacific a peculiar charm, which changeful Orient seas, and even the turbulent Atlantic, never can impart. Instinctively we stand uncovered in the presence of the mightiest ocean on our planet. ”

“ One of those still, hot, sweltering days, so common in the Pacific, when Nature seems to have gone to sleep, and the only thing in water or in air that proves her still alive, is her long, deep breathing, in the swell of the mighty sea. ”

“ We stood then on a steep bluff, and looked down upon a narrow strip of sea-board, populous with towns and hamlets, with fertile fields between; and so we came to the seashore, and saw the sun go down upon the wide and golden Pacific Ocean.
"AND SO WE CAME TO THE SHORE AND SAW THE SUN GO DOWN UPON THE WIDE AND GOLDEN PACIFIC OCEAN." And now my story is told. Since those days I have ventured often in the wild places of the world--upon great open spaces, amid the summits of unknown mountains, in dense, steaming forests--but never again have I journeyed to the Wood of the Red Fish. ”

“ Lying in the Pacific Ocean, in the temperate zone and not in the torrid, as many have the thought, it bends like a crescent off the continent of Asia. In the extreme north, near the island of Saghalien, the distance from the main land of Asia is so short that it is little more than a day’s sail in a junk. ”

“ Around the Pacific Ocean is a vast circle of ignivomous mountains—the western coasts of America, the Aleutian Islands, Kamtchatka, the Kuriles, Japan, the Philippines, Molucca, down to the Sunda Islands and New Zealand, being comprised therein. ”

“ Did his Grace imagine the Pacific Ocean alive with all descriptions of vessels sailing and steaming from our magnificent Colonies—New Zealand, Van Diemen’s Land, New South Wales, New Holland, from Borneo and the West Coast of China, from the Sandwich Islands, and a thousand other places, all carrying the rich productions of the East, and landing them at the commencement of the West,—to be forwarded and distributed throughout our North American provinces, and to be delivered in Thirty Days at the ports of Great Britain? ”

“ Pacific Ocean, the largest sheet of water on the globe, occupies a third of its whole surface, as much as all the land put together. It is a wide oval in shape, lying between Australia and Asia on the W., and North and South America on the E. Except from Asia it receives no large rivers. On its American shores the Gulf of California is the only considerable indentation; the Okhotsk, Japanese, Yellow, and Chinese Seas, on the Asiatic coast, are rather wide bays shut in by islands than inland seas. ”

“ The Pacific Ocean consists mainly of one enormous basin bounded on the west by New Zealand and the Tonga, Marshall and Marianne ridges, on the north by the festoons of islands marking off the North Pacific fringing seas, on the east by the coast of North America and the great Easter Island Rise and on the south by the Antarctic Shelf. The total area of this basin is about 80,000,000 sq. km. (30,000,000 sq. m.) , its surface being almost twice that of Asia. Half of this basin lies deeper than 2750 fathoms, and the greater part of it belongs to the northern hemisphere. ”

“ Whether a great continent ever existed in the Pacific Ocean since man’s appearance on the earth, or whether the great area occupied by Oceanica and the Coral Islands of the Central Pacific was once a continent, are questions which cannot now be determined. It is certain, however, as Professor Dana has shown in his study of the atolls and barriers of the Pacific, that if not a continent, at least a great archipelago measuring 6000 miles in length by from 1000 to 2000 miles in breadth, has subsided to a depth ranging from 3000 to 6000 feet. ”

“ How easily, then, could we account for the peopling of any island or coast in the Pacific. Whether, therefore, stress of weather obliged some unfortunate Chinamen or Japanese to people America, or whether they, or, at all events, some Northern Asiatics, took the “short sea route,” viâ Bering Straits, [pg 141] there is a very strong probability in favour of the New World having been peopled from not merely the Old World, but the Oldest World—Asia.
The Pacific Ocean generally bears itself in a manner which justifies its title. ”

“ The Pacific Ocean extends north to south between the two polar circles and east to west between America and Asia over an expanse of 145° of longitude. It's the most tranquil of the seas; its currents are wide and slow–moving, its tides moderate, its rainfall abundant. And this was the ocean that I was first destined to cross under these strangest of auspices.
"If you don't mind, professor," Captain Nemo told me, "we'll determine our exact position and fix the starting point of our voyage. It's fifteen minutes before noon. I'm going to rise to the surface of the water." ”

“ The vast extent of Sea-coast, embracing every clime, and the numerous fertile Islands with which the great Pacific Ocean is crowded, to which it has immediate access, render it superior. And the circumstance that almost all the commercial and manufacturing nations of the world are compelled to make great circuits, in order to reach these shores, gives another advantage worthy of consideration. Its water power, we believe, cannot be surpassed on the face of the globe, neither can its forests or the purity of its streams. ”

“ If now one will examine a map of the Pacific ocean upon which the currents are marked, he will see that the great Japan current flows in a northeasterly direction along the Asiatic coast, until it divides, one branch continuing through Behring sea and strait into the Arctic, whilst the other and larger portion takes a great sweep to the east, until it strikes the American continent, when it turns southward, and flows parallel to the coast. ”

“ Within a few yards of the surrounding glaciers, and close to the sea, the vegetation is abundant, and in many places semi-tropical, a fact which is due to the comparatively mild winters, the temperate summers, the moist climate, and the rich soil of these parts. Passing up English Reach, we now caught our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, between Cape Pillar on one Page 139side, and Westminster Hall, Shell Bay, and Lecky Point, on the other. ”

“ It is worthy of observation, that the islands in the Pacific Ocean, which our late voyages have added to the geography of the globe, have been generally found lying in groups or clusters; the single intermediate islands, as yet discovered, being few in proportion to the others ”

“ Fauna of the Pacific Ocean.—From the splendid discoveries of the Challenger, and the supplementary observations obtained from other sources, the Pacific seems to be the ocean basin which is richest both quantitatively and qualitatively in Radiolarian life, excelling both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans in this respect. ”

“ The rapid peopling of our territory entails at least two. The growth of the Pacific States enhances the commercial and political importance of the Pacific Ocean to the world at large, and to ourselves in particular; while the productive energies of the country, and its advent to the three seas, impel it necessarily to seek outlet by them and access to the regions beyond. ”

“ The monsoons of India, as I shall presently show, are examples of this; but the most striking instance with which I am personally acquainted occurs in the Pacific Ocean, between the Bay of Panama and the Peninsula of California, from latitude 8° to 22° north. If the huge continent of Mexico were taken away, and only sea left in its place, there can be no doubt but the ordinary phenomena of the Trade-winds would be observable in that part of the Pacific above mentioned. ”

“ The evidence that has been so fully and judiciously stated in the introduction, amounts to the highest degree of probability that a north-west passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean, cannot exist to the southward of 65° of latitude. If then there exists a passage, it must be either through Baffin’s Bay, or round by the north of Greenland, in the western hemisphere; or else through the Frozen Ocean, to the northward of Siberia, in the eastern; and on which ever side it lies, the navigator must necessarily pass through Beering’s Straits. ”

“ To a detached rock below the headland English seamen have given the name Dungeness. In the failing light, I could see that the coast westward from Cape Virgenes rises into hills, which appeared to be bare of forest. I should guess their height not to exceed two thousand feet, if it even reaches that limit.
It was almost quite dark when we finally re-entered the Atlantic, and found its waters in a very gentle mood. In these latitudes the name Pacific is not well applied to any part of that which the older navigators more fittingly designated the Southern Ocean. ”

“ With the Pacific Ocean only a few miles away, with its intricate network of great and lesser rivers, and its inland tidal waters whose aggregate littoral exceeds the distance between Cape Cod and Cape Flattery, it is remarkable how much of the exploration and industrial and commercial development of the Pacific Northwest has come from the East towards the West. ”

“ The south-western part of the Pacific Ocean has a very rich and diversified submarine relief, abounding in small basins separated by ridges and rises. There are no depths, however, much exceeding 2500 fathoms amongst these depressions. The south-eastern part of the Pacific is mainly occupied by the Easter Island Rise with depths rarely so great as 2000 fathoms ”

“ Moreover, the oceans of our earth are so much larger in relative extent than those of Mars, covering nearly three-fourths instead of barely one-half of the surface of the world they belong to, that they would appeal as far more marked and characteristic features than the seas and lakes of Mars. When the Pacific Ocean, indeed, occupies centrally the disc of the earth which at the moment is turned towards any planet, nearly the whole of that disc must appear to be covered by the ocean. ”

“ If one has regarded the Pacific as an unknown or an untraversed sea, the impression will be removed by a glance at a map recently published by the United States government—a map with which every ocean traveler should equip himself. ”

“ The Pacific far surpasses the Atlantic in beauty and diversity of ocean scenery. Its gentle gales and placid waves inexpressibly{207} charm the heart of the sailor. Almost every species of fish, from the tiny pilchard to the monstrous whale may be found in its waters; while countless numbers of aquatic birds, from the diminutive petrel to the ponderous albatross, swim lazily upon its bosom. ”

“ The continuity of this sub-ocean plain is broken is some places by ranges of submarine hills, parallel with the Coast range. The summits of these hills are known as banks, and are the feedinggrounds (as well as the fishing-grounds) for vast numbers of fish. The streams or currents of the ocean along the northwest coast are dominated by the effects of the Japanese stream, the great ocean current of the Pacific, which, having its rise in the warm regions of the tropics, flows past the coast of Japan, and, crossing over, loses itself on the American shores. ”

“ Vessels navigating the Archipelago [Pg 41] between China and New Zealand, should make observations every three hours, in order that the undulations arising from the configuration of the terrestrial and oceanic surfaces may be more distinctly marked and more advantageously compared with the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the northern portion of the African continent.
The Pacific Ocean.—As this ocean presents so vast an aqueous surface, generally speaking observations at intervals of six hours will be amply sufficient to ascertain its leading barometric phænomena. ”