Law of the sea

“ If we search through all the books, from the Rules of Oléron to the present time, we shall find that salvage is only spoken of in relation to ships and vessels and their cargoes, or those things which have been committed to, or lost in, the sea or its branches, or other public navigable waters, and have been found and rescued. ”

“ Are not all bodies influenced by the law of universal attraction? Why should this vast underground sea be exempt from the general law, the rule of the universe? Besides, there is nothing like that which is proved and demonstrated. Despite the great atmospheric pressure down here, you will notice that this inland sea rises and falls with as much regularity as the Atlantic itself."
As my uncle spoke, we reached the sandy shore, and saw and heard the waves breaking monotonously on the beach. ”

“ The maritime law as generally accepted by maritime nations leaves the matter untouched and in practice each of them has applied the same rule for the sea which it maintains on land. The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 204, 213, 7 Sup. ”

“ The necessity of giving themselves up to sleep with relative security, without fear of the general rapacity which is the oceanic law, is a matter of concern to all of these marine beings, making them constructive and inventive. ”

“ Anchored vessels, like wharves, piers and the like, may constitute serious obstructions to navigation but this does not give others the right to run them down. Approaching vessels are still bound to use ordinary care and skill to avoid them. ”

“ There is a strife between these currents, and on their confines eddies are formed which ships avoid, but there is no danger unless the wind blows strongly against the tide.
Besides the influence of the currents and the tides of the ocean in altering the configuration of the land, the sea is the home of innumerable forms of animal life, which are constantly laboring in the same direction. It has been truly said, that [706] a beef bone, thrown overboard by a sailor on a ship, may form the nucleus of a new continent. ”

“ The vast ocean is common to all mankind as to navigation and fishing, which are the only uses therof, because it is not capable of bounds; but where the sea is enclosed, in bays, creeks, or otherwise is capable of any bounds or meiths, as within the points of such lands, or within the view of such shores, there it may become proper, but with the reservation of passage for commerce, as in the land. ”

“ We therefore gave up the idea of taking the ship out as we brought her in, and set to work to discover another passage into blue water. But sure such a hopeless range of shoals, banks, reefs, and dangerous points of rock, never bewildered poor mariners; sometimes we thought that we had hit upon a channel, but just as we were upon the point of finding our way clearly into the open ocean, a few specks of white water only seen when the sea fell into a trough at that place, would stretch across the route, and reveal the fact, that a ledge of pointed and pinnacled reef barred the way. ”

“ What is more uncertain than the wide ocean? While they were congratulating themselves on their prospects, dark clouds were seen to rise in the west, heavy seas increasing in height came rolling towards them, and once more a heavy gale blew in their teeth. They could no longer carry sail, and all the strength they could exert was scarcely sufficient to enable them to keep the boat head to sea. ”

“ So Chancellor Kent says: 'The 'high seas' mean the waters of the ocean without the boundary of any county, and they are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty, up to high-water mark when the tide is full. The 'open ocean, which washes the seacoast,' is used in contradistinction to arms of the sea inclosed within the fauces terrae, or narrow headlands and promontories ”

“ Round us and before us, the waters curled up into giant waves, which flung high into the air ridges of white foam and then fell sheer down into a yawning gulf, only to rise again nearer and nearer to the quivering sides of our frail craft, which still pressed on—on to where we expected to meet with death rather than rescue, as we saw the ripped sail dip itself into the seething waters like the wing of a wounded sea-bird. ”

“ Ships, when the tide rises and sets strongly in any direction, sometimes turn and seem as if they would go out upon it. But they only head that way, and move from side to side, swaying and swinging without moving on at all. There seems to be nothing to hinder them from sailing and floating out to sea ”

“ A large commerce is conducted on seas other than the ocean and the English seas, and it is equally necessary to distinguish between their open waters, and their ports and havens, and to provide for offenses on vessels navigating those waters, and for collisions between them. The term 'high seas' does not, in either case, indicate any separate and distinct body of water, but only the open waters of the sea or ocean, as distinguished from ports and havens and waters within narrow headlands on the coast. ”

“ The seaman, drifting along the coast, and misled by the increasing clearness and mirage, believes that he has been driven by a current towards the land; he casts the lead, and looks anxiously out for the sea breeze, in order to escape from what he believes to be threatening danger. The planks burn under his feet; in vain he spreads the awning to shelter himself from the broiling sun. Its rays are oppressive; repose does not refresh; motion is not agreeable. The inhabitants of the deep, awakened by the clear light of day, prepare themselves for labour. ”

“ When considering the bottom of the ocean, we have, in the imagination, been disposed to regard the waters of the sea as a great cushion, placed between the air and the bottom of the ocean to protect and defend it from these abrading agencies of the atmosphere. ”

“ Apart from all judicial decision, and all the authority of the legal sages who have illustrated this subject by their labors, there is a wide and obvious physical distinction betwee the navigability of the arms of the sea-those bays, more or less extensive, putting up from the ocean into the land, which are flowed by the tide of that great reservoir-and those channels of water which lie above that source of supply. So long as the ocean keeps its bed, and the present frame of nature exists, there will always be water up to the ocean level in those channels where the tide ebbs and flows ”

“ Our knowledge of the bottom of the ocean, therefore, remains still very imperfect, and, with little exception, the simple apparatus of the mariner, consisting of a plummet and line, continues to be chiefly in use for ascertaining the depth of the sea and the nature of the ground. ”

“ In England, for example, which is surrounded by narrow land-broken seas, the result is that they get some of the most terrible and dangerous tidal races and currents to be found anywhere on the globe. ”

“ First, as to time: as the vessels in a harbour, and in the open sea without it, may be seen swinging with the tide at the same moment in opposite directions; the ebb has begun in the roadstead, while it is not yet high water in the harbour; so one or more nations may be in advance of or behind the general tendency of their age, and from either cause may be moving in the opposite direction. Again, the tendency or movement in itself is liable to frequent interruptions, and short counter-movements: even when the tide is coming in upon the shore, every wave retires after its advance ”

“ The dangerous nature of the coast, and the surrounding seas, is owing to sunken rocks, strong currents and tides, which vary from day to day. It requires a life-long apprenticeship to become well acquainted with all the hidden and open perils which threaten a seaman’s life. No wonder then if some of our fishermen, brought up to the sea from their earliest youth, become experienced and fearless pilots, knowing every reef, every set of the tide, and able to reckon to a nicety, how long the current will run in one direction, and when it may be [481] expected to take a different course. ”

“ But how lovingly the eye rests on that tranquil sea with its hither shore, the "white wings" floating above, the energetic steamboat defiantly crossing their track, the asthmatic tug pulling at something it has picked up at some little port down the Sound, and a few oar-boats rippling the water near shore. The air comes fresh from the northwest with an odor of the sea in it, a little cool, us if it had touched in passing the silvery snowline of the Olympics. ”

“ A physical difficulty at once presents itself, insomuch that the shallow-draught vessels of the lakes are unfit for ocean service, whereas the deep-draught vessels of the Atlantic are unable to enter the shallow waters of the canals and harbors of the lakes. After various consultations and debates, it is determined to correct this inequality of material nature by passing a law doubling the specific gravity of water in the lakes, so that ocean vessels drawing twenty-four feet of water can sail upon the lakes with little more than twelve. ”

“ The old naval phrase, that the seas are England's bulwarks, is not a frigid and artificial metaphor; it came into the head of some genuine sea-dog, when he was genuinely looking at the sea. For the edge of the sea is like the edge of a sword; it is sharp, military, and decisive; it really looks like a bolt or bar, and not like a mere expansion. It hangs in heaven, grey, or green, or blue, changing in colour, but changeless in form, behind all the slippery contours of the land and all the savage softness of the forests, like the scales of God held even. ”

“ But if we have no perfectly certain ideas regarding the propagation of the motions of the sea in depth, we can assert, that, whatever that extent and that power may be, the submarine currents no more abrade the rocks than rivers do the surface of the land. ”

“ The common-law test of the navigability of waters, that they are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, grew out of the fact that in England there are no waters navigable in fact, or to any great extent, which are not also affected by the tide. ”

“ We of today, with our knowledge of other forces than those of wind and ocean currents operating in ocean navigation, look upon the steamship's speed as perfectly natural. The natural forces with which the mariner of a hundred years ago was acquainted are simply overcome by other forces in nature; not in violation of any natural law, but through the application of forces unknown to the sailor of a hundred years ago. ”

“ The sea, angered at meeting a substantial impediment, seethes and foams in wild excitement, dashing fifty feet into the air, and, falling over the reef, lashes the inner waters of the harbor into waves which mount the landing piers, and set everything afloat in the broad plaza which lines the shore. The big ships rock and sway incessantly, straining at their anchors, or chafing dangerously at their moorings. Precautions are taken to avert damage, but man's strength and skill count for little when opposed by the enraged elements. ”

“ While the tide is out our main projects, stranded in this estuary that leads perhaps to the ocean of peace, must needs keel over and look askew; we must scrape our keels, calk leaks and wait for the great waters to return. ”

“ It has been argued, that no ship has a right to approach another at sea; and that every ship has a right to draw round her a line of jurisdiction, within which no other is at liberty to intrude. In short, that she may appropriate so much of the ocean as she may deem necessary for her protection, and prevent any nearer approach. ”

“ The figures representing the vessels are so marked as to show whether the prevailing direction of the wind be adverse or fair.
570. When one looks seaward from the shore, and sees a ship disappear in the horizon as she gains an offing on a voyage to India, or the Antipodes perhaps, the common idea is that she is bound over a trackless waste, and the chances of another ship, sailing with the same destination the next day, or the next week, coming up and speaking with her on the “pathless ocean,” would, to most minds, seem slender indeed. ”

“ But besides the powerful influence of this current on climate, it exerts a very considerable influence on navigation. In former times, when men regarded the ocean as a great watery waste—utterly ignorant of the exquisite order and harmonious action of all the varied substances and conditions which prevail in the sea, just as much as on the land—they committed themselves to the deep as to a blind chance, and took the storms and calms they encountered as their inevitable fate, which they had no means of evading. ”

“ They have no vessels either large or small, nor has the coast any capes or bights that might afford shelter from west- and south-winds, the whole shore being clear and unencumbered, with a clayey bottom, forming a good anchoring-ground, the sea being not above 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 fathom in depth at 1,2 and more miles' distance from the land, the rise and fall of the water with the tides we found to be between 11⁄2 and 2 fathom. ”

“ And therefore the tide is propagated through the ocean with a slower motion than it should be according to the course of the moon; and this retardation is very necessary, that the sea at the same time may fall between Brazil and New France, and rise at the Canary islands, and on the coasts of Europe and Africa, and vice versa: for the sea cannot rise in one place but by falling in another. ”

“ Now, although these shore belts and shallow seas are broadly connected with the great ocean body, and are usually regarded as a part of it, they are singularly separated from it, or rather they are singularly separated by it, so far as the life dependent on shallow-water conditions is concerned. To this life, the deep sea is a barrier not quite as effective as the land, but still a barrier. The key to this important fact may be found in a consideration of the vertical distribution of life. ”