South Atlantic

“ The sudden eastward recession of the African coast as it approaches the equator, and the westward trend of the South American coast-line between Cape St Roque and Cape Horn, widen out the South Atlantic basin to the same breadth as that of the North Atlantic in the parallel of 30 N., the interval between the Cape of Good Hope and the estuary of La Plata, in the parallel of 35 S., being no less than 73|- of longitude, or about 3GOO geographical miles. The depth of the North Atlantic has been more care fully and systematically examined than that of any other oceanic basin ”

“ The Atlantic Ocean is traversed by a series of main currents, which are of great importance on account of their powerful influence on the physical conditions of the surrounding regions of sea and atmosphere. By its oceanographical investigations in 1910 and 1911 the Fram expedition has made important contributions to our knowledge of many of these currents. We shall first speak of the investigations in the North Atlantic in 1910, and afterwards of those in the South Atlantic in 1911. ”

“ 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. ”

“ South America is bounded at its northern end by an isthmus and at its southern by a strait. They are the two gateways by which the western side of the Continent, cut off from the western and central portions by a long and lofty mountain range, can be approached from the Atlantic. It was by crossing the Isthmus that Vasco Nuñez de Balboa discovered the South Sea. It was by penetrating the Strait that Magellan, seven years later, discovered that this South Sea was a vast ocean stretching all the way to the coasts of Asia. ”

“ While the prevalence of certain winds, and the form of the coast of South-America, are favorable to a direct trade with the continent of North-America, they are such as to compel the commerce with Europe to pass along our shores, and thus constitute our Atlantic seaports so many stopping places at which the ships of the old world may touch in their voyages to and fro. ”

“ The Atlantic coast of South America is simpler, the chief indentations being, on the north the gulfs of Darien and Venezuela, on the northeast the estuary of the Amazon, and on the east the harbors of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, the estuary of the Rio de la Plata, and the gulfs of Blanca, San Matias, and San Jorge, on the Argentine coast. ”

“ The feeble colonies along the Atlantic grew slowly, and not until two hundred and fifty years did they really begin to push over the mountains, and there met other colonies from the interior of the continent. The South Sea trade led to many voyages of discovery, and many energetic captains sailed up and down the coast striving and continually hoping to find some strait to the supposed near coast of Asia. ”

“ The mild blue weather we enjoyed after leaving the Marquesas gradually changed as we ran farther south and approached Tahiti. In these generally tranquil seas, the wind sometimes blows with great violence; though, as every sailor knows, a spicy gale in the tropic latitudes of the Pacific is far different from a tempest in the howling North Atlantic. ”

“ It is simply a part of the Atlantic Ocean, adjoining the coast of Europe between latitudes 43° 46′ and 48° 28′. I have not been able to ascertain that the wind blows harder, or that the sea runs higher there than elsewhere in the same latitudes, and am inclined to rank the prejudice against that particular tract of sea-water among vulgar errors.
The adventurer who has attempted to open up a trade with some distant region is accustomed, as he returns home, to count up the profits of his expedition ”

“ An important adjunct to the present highly favourable geographical conditions pointing to a great future for civilization on the Atlantic coast is the construction of a ship-canal across the isthmus uniting North and South America. ”

“ Instead of running north and south, as you would naturally suppose, the Isthmus runs almost due east and west. That is because South America lies much farther to the east than most of us realize; so much so, that if an airship were to fly far enough in a bee line from New York to the south, it would find itself over the Pacific, off the coast of Peru. At Panama, the Pacific, instead of being west of the Atlantic, is southeast of it. That is why the Spaniards, coming overland to this new ocean from the one they had left on the north, called it the "South Sea." ”

“ Voyage across the Atlantic—Barbadoes—Jamaica—Isthmus of Panama—Buenaventura, tropical forest—Guayaquil and the river Guayas—Payta—The rainless zone of Peru—Voyage to Callao.
A voyage across the Atlantic in a large ocean steamer is now as familiar and as little troublesome as the journey from London to Paris. It rarely offers any incident worth recounting, and yet, especially as a first experience, it supplies an abundant variety of sources of curiosity and interest. ”

“ A wide expanse of water, and of land almost as level as the water, stretches out to the eastern horizon, so that at first one fancies that this apparently shoreless sea is part of the Atlantic, which is in fact still nearly a hundred miles away. ”

“ The wide gap which the Atlantic Ocean opens in the zone of habitation has the effect of producing "fringe"-lands. Although a brisk intercourse from north to south, together with thickly-peopled regions at the back, and more favorable climates, have rendered these far less ethnographically destitute than the regions towards the poles, we still find that in Africa the highest development has been reached on the east coast, in America on the west, that is, on the inner sides or those farthest from the Atlantic. ”

“ Throughout the Indian Ocean, lines connect the far East with Europe and America by way of the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the western coast of Europe, and the great trans-Atlantic lines. The Mediterranean is crossed and recrossed in its entire length and breadth by numerous cable lines, and the Mediterranean of America,' the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, is traversed in all directions by lines which bring its islands and colonies into speaking relations with each other and with South America, Central America, the United States, and thence with Europe, Africa, Asia—the whole world. ”

“ As will be seen from the second map the catastrophe of 800,000 years ago caused very great changes in the land distribution of the globe. The great continent is now shorn of its northern regions, and its remaining portion has been still further rent. The now growing American continent is separated by a chasm from its parent continent of Atlantis, and this no longer comprises any of the lands now existing, but occupies the bulk of the Atlantic basin from about 50° north to a few degrees south of the equator. ”

“ Lands are now gradually emerging from the sea in some places and at others sinking into the sea. The entire coast of Scandinavia, both on the Baltic and Atlantic sides, is rising out of the sea, and has been doing so for a long time. It is rising at the rate of more than two feet in a hundred years. During an [83] immense period of time there has been a gradual elevation of all the southern part of the South American continent. Sometimes a large elevation takes place rapidly. ”

“ From Cape Froward to Peckett Harbour the Patagonian coast runs nearly due north, and then trends east-north-east for about seventy miles, where the channel is contracted between the northern shore and Elizabeth Island. After passing the island, we entered the part called “The Narrows,” where the Fuegian coast approaches very near to the mainland of the continent. As the day was declining, we issued from this channel into a bay fully thirty miles wide, partly closed by two headlands, which are the landmarks for seamen entering the Straits from the Atlantic. ”

“ There are certain parts of the world—like our American mountains, deserts, and lonely stretches of coast—which seem planned for the spiritual refreshment of mankind; places from which one carries away a new serenity and the sense of a yearning for beauty satisfied. Ever since the days of Cook the islands of the South Sea have charmed the white man—explorers, naturalists, traders, and the rough crews of whaling vessels ”

“ We called the South Sea islands, each flower a different isle.
No golden lot that fortune could draw for human life,
To us seemed like a sailor’s, mid the storm and strife.
Our talk was of fair vessels that swept before the breeze,
And new-discovered countries amid the Southern Seas.
Within that lonely garden what happy hours went by,
While we fancied that around us spread foreign sea and sky.
Ah! the dreaming and the distant no longer haunt the mind;
We leave, in leaving childhood, life’s fairy land behind. ”

“ To have an island of one’s own, in the beautiful South Seas, to live remote from strain and worry, and out of the clash and roar of twentieth-century civilization—to pass one’s days in a land of perpetual summer ”

“ England even during the more recent history of the earth, when man already existed, has repeatedly been connected with the European continent and been repeatedly separated from it. Nay, even Europe and North America have been directly connected. The South Sea at one time formed a large Pacific Continent, and the numerous little islands which now lie scattered in it were simply the highest peaks of the mountains covering that continent. The Indian Ocean formed a continent which extended from the Sunda Islands along the southern coast of Asia to the east coast of Africa. ”

“ On the Atlantic coast one feels that he is looking off toward civilized and friendly lands, across a sea which ocean greyhounds have made narrow; but here three purple islands, floating on the limitless expanse, suggest mysterious archipelagoes scattered starlike on its area, thousands of miles away, before a continent is reached; and one vaguely imagines unknown races, coral reefs, and shores of fronded palms, where Nature smiles indulgently upon a pagan paradise. ”

“ The soundings that are met with off the coast of America, from the latitude of 36 degrees south to the southward, are very convenient to enable ships to judge of their distance from the land, as thick fogs are very frequent near that coast. If the winds are favourable, to go through Straits le Maire must considerably shorten the passage round Cape Horn, as all the distance saved is so much gained to the westward. I am informed that several harbours have been lately discovered by the South Sea whalers on the north side of Staten Island that afford safe anchorage with supplies of wood and water. ”

“ To the south, in one unbroken line, lie several thousand miles of coast indented with rich markets of Spanish America—to the west, Asiatic Russia and China are close at hand—between the south and west are New Holland and Polynesia; and within good marketable distance are all the groups and clusters of islands that stud the ocean, from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope, from Asia to America. ”

“ We go eastward to realise history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old World and its institutions. ”

“ So did men distinguish their origin in the South Seas, preserve the glory of the past and gain respect from those around them.
Once more out on the world’s mercy, released, in tears, those old relics of a resplendent barbaric age roamed from grog shanty to grog shanty. In those walls of the white man they could lay their weary heads from dawn to dawn. ”

“ Hence his visits to the great Pacific ports that can be reached by liner; hence, in most cases, his gradually acquired conviction that the islands are, after all, very much like any other place in the tropics—beautiful, interesting, but—— Well, writer fellows always exaggerate: every one knows that.
Hotel dinners, big liners, shops, hired carriages, guides, and picture postcards—these things are death to the spirit of the South Seas. This is the first lesson that the island wanderer must learn. Where every one goes the bloom is off the peach. ”

“ All these things argued against any attempt that way; whereas, on the other hand, for southern discoveries, we had this particular encouragement; that whatever disappointment we might meet with, in the search after unknown countries, yet we were sure of an open sea behind us; and that whenever we thought fit to run south beyond the tropic, we should find innumerable islands where we might get water, and some sort of provisions, or come back into a favourable climate, and have the benefit of the trade winds, to carry us either backward or forward, as the season should happen to guide us. ”

“ Henry has gone to the wheel, and sits gazing at the stars and singing South Sea songs—now of Samoa, now of Hawaii, and now of Tahiti, taking me back to the good times we had in those islands. The Snark really needs no steering to-night, but someone must be at the wheel.
And this is my last of the South Seas for perhaps a long time, perhaps forever. Those tall cocoanut trees on Rennell, which we can plainly see, are the last links of the islands. The next trees we see will be of the white man's country. ”