South Pacific Ocean

“ At five o'clock in the afternoon of the 2nd of July we weighed anchor and slipped from the quietness of Suva harbour out into a roystering east wind that was playing all manner of strange pranks with the placid sea we had come in through a week previously. For steep, short seas and uncomfortable small-schooner weather, nothing quite equals one of these reef-locked stretches of the south-west Pacific with a stiff blow on. The ever-imminent bottom, constantly dragging on the waves, retards them below and lets them keep going above, producing seas something between ocean swells and lines of surf. ”

“ Past them flows the current of the great Antarctic Drift, sweeping from the father of all oceans—the vast South Pacific,—away to the eastward, past the bleak pinnacles of Cape Horn, to disperse itself through the Lemaire Strait and Falkland Channel northward into the Atlantic Ocean.
With the wild snore of the great west wind sounding over them, and the chaotic thunder of the Pacific Ocean falling upon their sides, they are lonely and inhospitable, and are seldom, if ever, visited by man. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The South Pacific Ocean abounds with thousands of islands, of a vast many of which we have no account; but those mentioned in these pages appear to be the Samoas, the Kingsmill, and the Feejee Groups of islands, which lie nearly under the equator, and they are described by Captain Charles Wilkes, in his narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition between the years 1838 and 1842. These islands were all visited by the different vessels engaged in the expedition; many of them appear to be of volcanic formation, others are of coral origin ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed one is inclined to predict that aquatic skill in the islands will, in days to come, display itself rather in sailing. The South Pacific is an unquiet ocean, and long stretches of our coast are iron-bound cliffs or monotonous beaches. But to say nothing of half-a-hundred large lakes, there are at least three coastal regions which seem made for yachting. The most striking of these, but one better adapted for steam yachts than for sailing or small open craft, is at the butt-end of the South Island, and includes the fiords of the south-west coast and the harbours of eastern Stewart Island. ”

“ Probably no portion of the globe is so pregnant with the romance of unsolved problem as the Pacific Ocean. For thousands of years before Vasco de Balboa, the friend of Columbus, stood upon the heights of Panama and enriched mankind by his glorious geographical discovery, this great ocean and the islands which its blue waters encircle had remained a world in themselves, undisturbed by the rise and fall of continental kingdoms, unknown even to the semi-civilised peoples who dwelt on the neighbouring continental shores. ”

“ 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 ”

“ We had ourselves long previously used the route via Cape Horn and the South Pacific in our trade with Chili, Peru, and other countries on the west coast of South America. It was reserved for us for the first time to open out for the commerce of the world an eastern route from the Atlantic and from Europe across the South Pacific Ocean; in fact, 270to bring into practical use the voyages of Cook, Vancouver, and other circumnavigators of the globe, whose achievements during the past century had hitherto been regarded as interesting only in a geographical point of view. ”

“ A broader and more promising field for steam operations than that which the Pacific affords, does not exist in any part of the world. The prevailing south winds, the calms, and the currents of that ocean render navigation by sailing-vessels tedious and uncertain in the extreme; while the nature of the whole country, from Valparaiso to Guayaquil—presenting a succession of mountains and deep ravines, intersected by sandy deserts—offers every imaginable obstacle to land travelling ”

“ The Pacific Ocean is the largest, it alone covering more space than all the continents combined, having a breadth, east and west, of ten thousand miles (about the length of the Atlantic) , and an area of seventy million square miles. The equator divides it into the North and South Pacific. The former is comparatively free from islands, and is inclosed northward by the approaching extremities of Alaska and Siberia; while the latter widens at the south into the boundless Antarctic Ocean. ”

“ The whole south Pacific lies open to the pole, and the inertia of the immense mass of mobile waters pressing northward, and continually contracted by the form of the American and Asiatic coasts, is not balanced by a contrary impulse of the waters of the north Pacific, inasmuch as this ocean becomes narrower as it extends northward, and the only passage to the frozen ocean is through the narrow straits of Behring. ”

“ Thus I was obliged, as it were by necessity, for the first time, to leave a coast I had discovered, before it was fully explored.--I called it New Caledonia; and, if we except New Zealand, it is perhaps the largest island in the South Pacific Ocean. For it extends from the latitude of 19° 37', to 22° 30', S., and from the longitude of 163° 37' to 167° 14' E. It lies nearly N.W. 1/2 W., and S.E. 1 E., and is about eighty-seven leagues long in that direction; but its breadth is not considerable, not any where exceeding ten leagues. It is a country full of hills and valleys ”

“ Note: the major choke points are the Bering Strait, Panama Canal, Luzon Strait, and the Singapore Strait; the Equator divides the Pacific Ocean into the North Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean; ships subject to superstructure icing in extreme north from October to May and in extreme south from May to October; persistent fog in the northern Pacific from June to December is a hazard to shipping ”

“ When it began to be clear that there were masses of land extending a long way to the north and south of the part which Columbus had first struck, men tried to find a way through this land by which Asia, still supposed to be quite near, might be reached. Portuguese and Spanish navigators followed the coast of what we call South America a long way to the south, while others explored northwards. In 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, crossing the Isthmus of Darien, discovered the Pacific Ocean, which he called the South Sea ”

“ Extending nearly ten degrees of latitude along the Pacific, and embracing the only safe and commodious harbors on that coast for many hundred miles, with a temperate climate and an extensive interior of fertile lands, it is scarcely possible to estimate its wealth until it shall be brought under the government of our laws and its resources fully developed. From its position it must command the rich commerce of China, of Asia, of the islands of the Pacific, of western Mexico, of Central America, the South American States, and of the Russian possessions bordering on that ocean. ”

“ The naturalists who have visited the Pacific, seem to have had their attention riveted by the lagoon-islands, or atolls,—those singular rings of coral-land which rise abruptly out of the unfathomable ocean—and have passed over, almost unnoticed, the scarcely less wonderful encircling barrier-reefs. The theory most generally received on the formation of atolls, is that they are based on submarine craters ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ For much of the way the drive was through, or close upon, the tropical forest, and the youths were more than once reminded of their excursion in Singapore, and the ride in Ceylon from Point de Galle to Colombo. On one side of the island there was a view of the ocean, while on the other the scene included the dense swamp and series of islands lying between them and the mainland, with an occasional glimpse of the mountains that form the dividing ridge between the Atlantic and Pacific. ”

“ Besides this land, which Captain Crozet told us was a long but very narrow island, extending east and west, Captain Marion, in about the latitude of 48° south, and from 16° to 30° of longitude east of the Cape of Good Hope, discovered six islands, which were high and barren. These, together with some islands lying between the Line and the southern tropic in the Pacific Ocean, were the principal discoveries made in this voyage, the account of which, we were told, was ready for publication. ”

“ In the Pacific Ocean, a similar zone is occupied by permanent north and south-easterly breezes, or trade winds, though subject to a variety of interruptions. An instance of irregularity occurs along the coasts of Peru and Chili, where the general direction of the wind is south, and a steady south-easterly wind is only experienced at the distance of five or six hundred miles from the shore. The numerous shoals and islands which are found in the Pacific, prevent uniformity in the tropical movements of the atmosphere. ”

“ Having completed the survey of the coasts and islands of the South American continent, the Beagle sailed across the wide Pacific to Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia, in order to carry out the chain of chronometrical measurements round the world. From Australasia a run was then made for Keeling or Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean. This lonely island, 600 miles from the coast of Sumatra, is an atoll, or lagoon island. The land is entirely composed of fragments of coral. ”

“ The rivers of South America flowing into this ocean are only mountain streams, as the Andes Mountains approach so closely to the coast. The rivers of Asia, however, that flow into the Pacific are among the largest in the world, including the Amur, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-Kiang, Mekong and Menam. ”

“ The government should seek that passage, and having found it should establish naval stations in the North Pacific, say near California, and in the South Pacific, say at the Isle of Easter. From these stations as centres, explorations should be made throughout the great ocean, north and south. He believed there were thousands of islands, perhaps continents, still to be found there and these were doubtless peopled with tribes waiting to be supplied with British goods. ”

“ He referred to the pearls the boys’ native 8 chums in the Pamatou Islands in the South Pacific had presented them with, after their narrow escape from death in the sea-cave and the subsequent wreck on a coral reef, during the memorable Pacific voyage and adventures, which were described in detail in the volume of this series which immediately preceded the present book. This volume was called, “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific.” ”

“ Report of the Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred memorials from sundry citizens of Connecticut interested in the whale fishing, praying that an exploring expedition be fitted out to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas. March 21, 1836.
That a more accurate, defined, and available knowledge than we at present possess, of the waters, islands, and continental coasts of the great Pacific and Southern Oceans, has long been desirable, no unprejudiced individual conversant with the subject, is likely to deny. ”

“ Japan, Korea, China, the Philippine Islands, French Indo-China, the Malay States, Borneo, Java, Sumatra and the Hawaiian Islands; across seven seas: the Pacific Ocean, the Sea of Japan, the North China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the South China Sea, the Malacca Straits, and the Sea of Java; after visiting five wild and primitive tribes: the Ainu Indians of Japan, the Igorrotes of the Philippines, the Negritos of the same islands; the Dyaks of Borneo, and the Battaks of Sumatra ”