WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries / Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron Steamships cover

Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries / Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron Steamships

Chapter 61: FOOTNOTES:
By Frank B. Goodrich
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

AdventureHistory - AncientHistory - Modern (1750+)History - OtherHistory - Warfare

About This Book

A sweeping history of human interaction with the sea traces development from the simplest dugouts and sails to modern iron steamships, treating navigation as both craft and cultural force. It explains ship construction, rigging, and the evolution of propulsion and steering, surveys ancient and medieval voyages and the adoption of the magnetic compass, and follows the expansion of long-distance exploration. The narrative then outlines advances in naval warfare and engineering, including armored ships, rams, torpedo craft, and early submarine and deep-sea technologies, and concludes with practical and recreational subjects such as salvage, sounding, dredging, yacht design, and the sea's broader moral and poetic significance.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A late French biography of Columbus, a work of profound research and erudition, by M. Roselly de Lorgues, proves beyond a cavil the accuracy of this assertion. The work in question was published under the auspices of the Pope.

[2] This tract, so thickly matted with Gulf-weed, and covering an area equal in extent to the Mississippi Valley, has since been called by the Portuguese the Sargasso Sea. It still exists in the same spot, and if we now hear very little of it, it is because navigators have learned to avoid it. Lieut. Maury accounts for its existence in the following manner:—"Patches of this weed are always to be seen floating along the Gulf Stream. Now, if bits of cork, or chaff, or any floating substance, be put in a basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near the centre of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso Sea is the centre of the whirl. Columbus found this weedy sea in his voyage of discovery, and there it has remained to this day."

[3] Mr. John Mullaly.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

—Obvious print and punctuation errors fixed.

—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the front cover of the original book. The image is placed in the public domain.