The San Francisco call., 1904-09-25
LONELY SPOTS
IN BIG OCEAN
Vast Solitary Areas of Sea
That Are Seldom Trayersed
by Steam or Sail Vessel
USUAL ROUTES FAR OFF
Ships Go as the Grow Flies
as Far as Possible From
Port to Port Without Halt

There are deserts on the ocean as
well as on the dry land-vast wastes
upon which the eye of man has never
rested and which have seldom, If
ever, been crossed by the ships OF
commerce. The waves on these
wastes have never been parted by the
PROV of sailing vessel or lashed by
the propeller of a steamer: immense
solitudes, where the flap of a sail is
never heard nor the strident cry of
siren; veritable deserts. whose 81
lence is broken only by the bowling OF
the wind and the roar of the. waves.
which have been vainly pursuing one
another since the day of creation.
These deserts lie unforgotten be-
twixt the narrow ocean highways
places of the sea a disabled ship,
driven out of it's course by q hurricane,
may drift for months. tossed by the
ceaseleSs ground swell, without being
able to hail assistance. Her only
chance of escape is the possibility that
some ocean current may drag her into
a more frequented region.
MORE OF DESERT NOW.
1t is generally supposed that by
reason of the universal increase OF
maritime traffic the sea is everywhere
4
take. Ocean commerce has grown
enormously during the last half CEN
tury, but that development is due to
the substitution of steam navigation
for he old fashioned employment Of
sailing vessels. When the first steam
er began to churn the water with its
paddle wheels the sailing fleets ceased
to increase. With the advent of the
screw propeller they began to decrease
The gradual but constant disappear
ance of sailing ships made the ocean
more of a desert than before. Sailing
vessels had their established routes in
accordance with winds. currents and
seasons The gaps between the routes
taken by the outward bound and home
ward bound ships were often consid-
erable. Moreover, the capricious ele-
ments not infrequently played the
mischief with nautical instruments
and as a result the field of operation
for ocean shipping was vastly ex-
panded.
liner goes straight ahead, in defiance
Of wind and wave, the ports between
which she plies are great Industrial or
commercial centers, whittier come
numberless railways, serving as pro-
longations of the lines of navigation.
Freight cars carry their loads of mer-
chandise to the lesser ports and the
CLUES Vi Tile lltcIlOI. 1llC IcAllN oy AAcNo
killed coastwise navigation.
The ocean highways are therefore
anything but numerous. The most fire.
qUented of oceans is the Atlantic.
Apart from the Polar Seas, we see
that in it's northern part there is only
one desert zone-a dreary waste of
waters between the routes from Eu-
rope to the United States or Canada,
and those from Europe to the An
In south hRfW6nn the
routes from South American or the
Western American coast and the
routes from South Africa, extends
desert occasionally traversed by the
steamers of the line from Cape Town
and Mozambique, which, when the cof-
fee season is at its height in Brazil,
cross the Atlantic for cargoes at Rio
Janeiro and Santos.
PACIFIC THE SAHARA.
The Indian Ocean is frequented only
in the north by lines out of India and
Indo-China, and a little in the west
by liners from Oceania, which call at
Colombia, and then make straight for
Australia. Two lines. each with
steamship a month, follow a slender
lane from Australia to Cape Town.
The Pacific is the Sahara of the great
seas. Saving only the steamships from
the Far East to California and Brit
ish Columbia, a line from Sydney to
San Francisco, and a one-horse line
with sailings four or five times a
year, between Tahiti and the United
States-save for these mere ribbon
like streaks the Pacific is a desert.
Only a few native canoes ply daring
" from island to island in archi-
pelagoes girted round with coral reefs
-yeritable ocean graveyards, the ter
ror of seafaring men.
How many ships of which we have
received no tidngs, and of which not
so much as a drifting spar has ever
been picked up have been dragged by
Irresistible winds into those solitudes
of the South Pacific no one will ever
know ofoT the ocean guards it's prey
full Washington Post.