Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1867-05-16
wonders OF OLD ocean.

Townsend's Letter to the: Cincinnati Gazette.
Now the great mystery of the sea is be-
held in our vast Ignorance of it. Bound
less as the vastness of its waters, and as day
succeeds day, ushered in by no sail, crossed
by none and none appearing at night to
reach it's white hand above the horizon,
we feel the mysterious power OF our com
pass, in whose veering pulse we trust, and
the uses of the stars and sun that steady
our quadrant and stOOp down to lead us.
But Of the oceans boundaries and islet's
and shadows we do not know till we see
the captains chart, of which there is no
copy in our school atlas. Hereon are
places denoted of which we never knew.
Solitary rocks struck once by lone yes
sel,and their longitude and latitude care
fully marked, yet in the great void of
waters swallowed up again. So that with
much cruising our imperfect calculations
never find them The names of the Elem
| ish Cap, of Whales Hole, of Boeuf's Bank,
of Bazariethly's Rock, of Woodalls Rock,
of Virgin Rock, we do not hear, yet in the
| North Atlantic they have their places
pretty well attested; but Captains have
sailed this ocean where they lie hundred
voyages and never proved them real. SO
| broad and trackless is the deep that two
steamers, quitting New York together,
sailing the same course and at'the same
rate of speed, rarely see each other after
tbs first night out. Their compasses differ
a hairs point, and they float a hundred
miles apart Here on the chart is marked ;
"Perseus Shoal ~ breakers,) signifying
that in mid Atlantic there isa spot so shall
low that the turf breaks upon it as upon
| RockaWay Bar or upon Sandy Hook.
| Men are gray with sailing on the route of
Perseus Shoal, who never heard the surges
or saw. them flash lost in the great deep
is an awful sentence. The coming of a
sail to those who drift, is like finding the
true catch to Dodd's combination lock,
with its billion changes. With all the
| vessels of steam or sail that ply between
America and England it is rare to espy
more than three between the opposite
coasts while you are crossing the sea. Some
| vaguely understood matters of the earth s
rotundity, not new save to our landsmen' s
ignorance become palpable when we see
upon the chart the oceans skeleton, water
i and meridianIs only like an empty hoop
skirt. For example we see that the Straits
of Gibraltar instead Of facing Cuba due
westward, are nearly upon the latitmle o.
| Cincinnati; that London does MOTIVE OPP
posite New York but opposite Labrador
that when one is nearly half way to Europe
he is due south of Greenland, and still west
\ of the mouth of the Amazon; that if you
are shipwrecked in mid sea, your nearest
land will be the Azores Islands, from which,
indeed, YOU are but 500 miles on the route
4 between, New York. and Southampton;
The route that carries you to England
! quickest is not straight line upon the
man, but curved one. You sail on the
"arc of a great circle" and SO reduce your
VOYAGE from. 4, 900 to 1900 miles This is
I the simple proposition in navigation, that
a crooked line between two points is short
. err than a straight one. To avoid icebergs,
which drift to as low latitude as Nam
tucket, you sometimes bear due eastward,
or even southeastward, and then bend
4 acrtely north by east The Gulf Stream,
the Banks and the Roaring Forties are the
GREAT belts that you must cross; the one is
/ The zodiac of the ocean, spangled with
4 wrecks eeaweed and icebergs the second
I is the broad geysers of the Atlantic, smok-
ing eternally-the veil between the NeTl
l World and the Old-nature's last intimida.
4 ton to the sailor seeking the Western
4 Hemisphere in the Roaring Forties ydu
sail where all the winds do blow, sheltered
by no coasts, subject to the fierce and NUT
able minors of the great waters and their
4 skies. In every long swell that swifns to-
ward you there are "a thousand tons of
brine. In every gull that flashes like a
4 pearl in your wake comes an admonition
i of loneliness. Night descends with no
friendly sail in its embrace. The gales
cap every wave with white foam, till the
sea to the horizon looks like shoai OF
sharks with 1quivering fins. Morning
arises upon the same dreary waste, save
that the clouds are stanger and more i'm
iperious; no bright tints in them, as at
4 home, but gray and scudding, like the com
plexion of the ocean, and filed with its
restless spirit