The Sea Around Us

by Rachel Carson

  At the opposite pole, meanwhile, the dream of a northern passage to the riches of Asia lured one expedition after another into the frozen seas of the north. Cabot, Frobisher, and Davis sought the passage to the northwest, failed, and turned back. Hudson was left by a mutinous crew to die in an open boat. Sir John Franklin set out with the Erebus and Terror in 1845, apparently entered the labyrinth of Arctic islands by what later proved a feasible route, but then lost his ships and perished with all his men. Later rescue ships coming from east and west met in Melville Sound and thus the Northwest Passage was established.

  Meanwhile there had been repeated efforts to find a way to India by sailing eastward through the Arctic Sea. The Norwegians seem to have hunted walruses in the White Sea and had probably reached the coasts of Novaya Zemlya by the time of Ottar; they may have discovered Spitsbergen in 1194, although this is usually credited to Barents in 1596. The Russians had hunted seals in the polar seas as early as the sixteenth century, and whalers began to operate out of Spitsbergen soon after Hudson, in 1607, called attention to the great number of whales in the sea between Spitsbergen and Greenland. So at least the threshold of the ice-filled northern ocean was known when the British and Dutch traders began their desperate attempt to find a sea road north of Europe and Asia. There were many attempts, but few got beyond the coasts of Novaya Zemlya; the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were marked by the wreckage of hopes as well as of vessels, and by the death of such brilliant navigators as William Barents under the hardships met by expeditions ill prepared for arctic winters. Finally the effort was abandoned. It was not until 1879, after the practical need for such a passage had largely disappeared, that Baron Nordenskiöld, in the Swedish Vega, passed from Gothenburg to Bering Strait.

  So, little by little, through many voyages undertaken over many centuries, the fog and the frightening obscurity of the unknown were lifted from all the surface of the Sea of Darkness. How did they accomplish it—those first voyagers, who had not even the simplest instruments of navigation, who had never seen a nautical chart, to whom the modern miracles of loran, radar, and sonic sounding would have been fantasied beyond belief? Who was the first man to use a mariner’s compass, and what were the embryonic beginnings of the charts and the sailing directions that are taken for granted today? None of these questions can be answered with finality; we know only enough to want to know more.

  Of the methods of those secretive master mariners, the Phoenicians, we cannot even guess. We have more basis for conjecture about the Polynesians, for we can study their descendants today, and those who have done so find hints of the methods that led the ancient colonizers of the Pacific on their course from island to island. Certainly they seem to have followed the stars, which burned brightly in the heavens over those calm Pacific regions, which are so unlike the stormy and fog-bound northern seas. The Polynesians considered the stars as moving bands of light that passed across the inverted pit of the sky, and they sailed toward the stars which they knew passed over the islands of their destination. All the language of the sea was understood by them: the varying color of the water, the haze of surf breaking on rocks yet below the horizon, and the cloud patches that hang over every islet of the tropic seas and sometimes seem even to reflect the color of a lagoon within a coral atoll.

  Students of primitive navigation believe that the migrations of birds had meaning for the Polynesians, and that they learned much from watching the flocks that gathered each year in the spring and fall, launched out over the ocean, and returned later out of the emptiness into which they had vanished. Harold Gatty believes the Hawaiians may have found their islands by following the spring migration of the golden plover from Tahiti to the Hawaiian chain, as the birds returned to the North American mainland. He has also suggested that the migratory path of the shining cuckoo may have guided other colonists from the Solomons to New Zealand.

  Tradition and written records tell us that primitive navigators often carried with them birds which they would release and follow to land. The frigate bird or man-of-war bird was the shoresighting bird of the Polynesians (even in recent times it has been used to carry messages between islands), and in the Norse Sagas we have an account of the use of ‘ravens’ by Floki Vilgerdarson to show him the way to Iceland, ‘since seafaring men had no loadstone at that time in the north … Thence he sailed out to sea with the three ravens … And when he let loose the first it flew back astern. The second flew up into the air and back to the ship. The third flew forward over the prow, where they found land.’

  In thick and foggy weather, according to repeated statements in the Sagas, the Norsemen drifted for days without knowing where they were. Then they often had to rely on observing the flight of birds to judge the direction of land. The Landnamabok says that on the course from Norway to Greenland the voyager should keep far enough to the south of Iceland to have birds and whales from there. In shallow waters it appears that the Norsemen took some sort of soundings, for the Historia Norwegiae records that Ingolf and Hjorleif found Iceland ‘by probing the waves with the lead.’

  The first mention of the use of the magnetic needle as a guide to mariners occurs in the twelfth century after Christ, but as much as a century later scholars were expressing doubt that sailors would entrust their lives to an instrument so obviously invented by the devil. There is fair evidence, however, that the compass was in use in the Mediterranean about the end of the twelfth century, and in northern Europe within the next hundred years.

  For navigating the known seas, there had been the equivalent of our modern Sailing Directions for a great many centuries before this. The portolano and the peripli guided the mariners of antiquity about the Mediterranean and Black seas. The portolano were harbor-finding charts, designed to accompany the coast pilots or peripli, and it is not known which of the two was developed first. The Periplus of Scylax is the oldest and most complete of these ancient Coast Pilots that have survived the hazards of the intervening centuries and are preserved for us. The chart which presumably accompanied it no longer exists, but the two were, in effect, a guide to navigation of the Mediterranean in the fourth or fifth century B.C.

  The periplus called Stadiasmus, or circumnavigation of the great sea dates from about the fifth century after Christ but reads surprisingly like a modern Pilot, giving distances between points, the winds with which the various islands might be approached, and the facilities for anchorage or for obtaining fresh water. So for example, we read, ‘From Hermaea to Leuce Acte, 20 stadia hereby lies a low islet at a distance of two stadia from the land, there is anchorage for cargo boats, to be put into with west wind; but by the shore below the promontory is a wide anchoring-road for all kinds of vessels. Temple of Apollo, a famous oracle; by the temple there is water.’

  Lloyd Brown, in his Story of Maps, says that no true mariners’ chart of the first thousand years after Christ has been preserved or is definitely known to have existed. This he ascribes to the fact that early mariners carefully guarded the secrets of how they made their passages from place to place; that sea charts were ‘keys to empire’ and a ‘way to wealth’ and as such were secret, hidden documents. Therefore, because the earliest specimen of such a chart now extant was made by Petrus Vesconte in 1311 does not mean that many had not existed before it.

  It was a Dutchman who produced the first collection of navigational charts bound together in book form—Lucas Janssz Waghenaer. The Mariner’s Mirror of Waghenaer, first published in 1584, covered the navigation of the western coast of Europe from the Zuyder Zee to Cadiz. Soon it was issued in several languages. For many years ‘Waggoners’ guided Dutch, English, Scandinavian, and German navigators through eastern Atlantic waters, from the Canaries to Spitsbergen, for succeeding editions had extended the areas covered to include the Shetland and Faroe islands and even the northern coast of Russia as far as Novaya Zemlya.

  In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, under the stimulus of fierce competition for the wealth of the East Indies, the finest
charts were prepared not by governmental agencies, but by private enterprise. The East India companies employed their own hydro-graphers, prepared secret atlases, and generally guarded their knowledge of the sailing passages to the East as one of the most precious secrets of their trade. But in 1795 the East India Company’s hydrographer, Alexander Dalrymple, became official hydrographer to the Admiralty, and under his direction the British Admiralty began its survey of the coasts of the world from which the modern Admiralty Pilots stem.

  Shortly thereafter a young man joined the United States Navy—Matthew Fontaine Maury. In only a few years Lieutenant Maury was to make his influence felt on navigation all over the world, and was to write a book, The Physical Geography of the Sea, which is now considered the foundation of the science of oceanography. After a number of years at sea, Maury assumed charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments—the forerunner of the present Hydrographic Office—and began a practical study of winds and currents from the standpoint of the navigator. Through his energy and initiative a world-wide co-operative system was organized. Ships’ officers of all nations sent in the logs of their voyages, from which Maury assembled and organized information, which he incorporated in navigational charts. In return, the co-operating mariner received copies of the charts. Soon Maury’s sailing directions were attracting world notice: he had shortened the passage for American east-coast vessels to Rio de Janeiro by 10 days, to Australia by 20 days, and around the Horn to California by 30 days. The co-operative exchange of information sponsored by Maury remains in effect today, and the Pilot Charts of the Hydrographic Office, the lineal descendants of Maury’s charts, carry the inscription: ‘Founded on the researches of Matthew Fontaine Maury while serving as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy.’

  In the modern Sailing Directions and Coast Pilots now issued by every maritime nation of the world we find the most complete information that is available to guide the navigator over the ocean. Yet in these writings of the sea there is a pleasing blend of modernity and antiquity, with unmistakable touches by which we may trace their lineage back to the sailing directions of the sagas or the peripli of the ancient Mediterranean seamen.

  It is surprising, but pleasant, that sailing directions of one and the same vintage should contain instructions for obtaining position by the use of loran, and should also counsel the navigator to be guided, like the Norsemen a millennium ago, by the flight of birds and the behavior of whales in making land in foggy weather. In the Norway Pilot we read as follows:

  [Of Jan Mayen Island] The presence of sea fowl in large numbers will give an indication of the approach to land and the noise of their rookeries may be useful in locating the shore.

  [Of Bear Island] The sea around the islands teems with guillemots. These flocks and the direction of their flight on approaching, together with the use of the lead, are of great value in making the island when it is foggy.

  And the ultra-modern United States Pilot for Antarctica says:

  Navigators should observe the bird life, for deductions may often be drawn from the presence of certain species. Shags are … a sure sign of the close proximity of land … The snow petrel is invariably associated with ice and is of great interest to mariners as an augury of ice conditions in their course … Blowing whales usually travel in the direction of open water.

  Sometimes the Pilots for remote areas of the sea can report only what the whalers or sealers or some old-time fisherman has said about the navigability of a channel or the set of the tidal currents; or they must include a chart prepared half a century ago by the last vessel to take soundings in the area. Often they must caution the navigator not to proceed without seeking information of those having ‘local knowledge.’ In phrases like these we get the feel of the unknown and the mysterious that never quite separates itself from the sea: ‘It is said that there was once an island there … such information as could be secured from reports of men with local knowledge … their position has been disputed … a bank reported by an old-time sealer.’

  So here and there, in a few out-of-the-way places, the darkness of antiquity still lingers over the surface of the waters. But it is rapidly being dispelled and most of the length and breadth of the ocean is known; it is only in thinking of its third dimension that we can still apply the concept of the Sea of Darkness. It took centuries to chart the surface of the sea; our progress in delineating the unseen world beneath it seems by comparison phenomenally rapid. But even with all our modern instruments for probing and sampling the deep ocean, no one now can say that we shall ever resolve the last, the ultimate mysteries of the sea.

  In its broader meaning, that other concept of the ancients remains. For the sea lies all about us. The commerce of all lands must cross it. The very winds that move over the lands have been cradled on its broad expanse and seek ever to return to it. The continents themselves dissolve and pass to the sea, in grain after grain of eroded land. So the rains that rose from it return again in rivers. In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. For all at last return to the sea— to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.

  *From In Northern Mists, 1912 edition, A. H. Clark, vol. 1, pp. 234 and 247.

  Suggestions For Further Reading *

  General Information About the Ocean and Its Life

  Bigelow, Henry B. and Edmonson, W. T. Wind Waves at Sea, Breakers and Surf, U.S. Navy, Hydrographic Office Pub. no. 602, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947. 177 pp. Extremely readable; full of interesting and practical information about waves at sea and along coasts.

  Johnson, Douglas W. Shore Processes and Shoreline Development. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1919. 584 pp. Primarily for geologists and engineers concerned with shoreline changes, yet the chapter, The Work of Waves, is unmatched for sheer interest. Out of print.

  Marmer, H. A. The Tide. New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1926. 282 pp. In this book the late outstanding American authority on tidal phenomena explains the complex behavior of the tides. Out of print.

  Maury, Matthew Fontaine. Physical Geography of the Sea. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1855. 287 pp. Marks the foundation of the science of oceanography, as the first book to consider the sea as a dynamic whole. Out of print.

  Murray, Sir John, and Hjort, Johan. The Depths of the Ocean. London, Macmillan, 1912. 822 pp. Based chiefly on the work of the Norwegian research vessel Michael Sars in the North Atlantic, this work was for many years the bible of oceanography. It is now out of print and copies are rare.

  Ommaney, F. D. The Ocean. London, Oxford University Press, 1949. 238 pp. A thoughtful and pleasantly written account of the ocean and its life, for the general reader.

  Russell, F. S. and Yonge, C. M. The Seas. London, Frederick Warne and Co., 1928. 379 pp. Written chiefly from the biological point of view, this is one of the best general treatments of the subject.

  Sverdrup, H. U., Fleming, Richard, and Johnson, Martin W. The Oceans. New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1942. 1087 pp. The standard modern textbook of oceanography.

  Some of the most rewarding sources of information about the sea are the Sailing Directions of the U. S. Hydrographic Office (for waters outside of the United States) and the Coast Pilots of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (for United States shores). Besides giving detailed accounts of the coastlines and coastal waters of the world, these books are repositories of fascinating information on icebergs and sea ice, storms, and fog at sea. Some approach the character of regional geographies. Those dealing with remote and inaccessible coasts are especially interesting. They may be purchased from the issuing agency. The British Admiralty publishes a similar series, as do the appropriate authorities of most maritime nations.

  Sea Life in Relation to Its Surroundings

  Hardy, Alister. The Open Sea. Part I, The World of Plankton. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956. 335 pp. Part II, Fish an
d Fisheries, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959. 322 pp. A two-part study of marine biology, describing first the little-known creatures of the true sea world beyond the coastal areas, and then the fishes that depend on them.

  Hesse, Richard, Allee, W. C, and Schmidt, Karl P. Ecological Animal Geography. New York, John Wiley and Sons (2nd Ed., 1951). 597 pp. This is an excellent source of information on the intricate relations of living things to their environment, with profuse references to source material. About a fourth of the book is concerned with marine animals.

  Murphy, Robert Cushman. Oceanic Birds of South America. New York, Macmillan, 1948. 1245 pp. 2 vols. (originally issued by American Museum of Natural History, 1936). Highly recommended for an understanding of the relation of birds to the sea and of marine organisms to their environment. It describes little-known shores and islands in extremely readable prose, and contains an extensive bibliography. Out of print.

  Wallace, Alfred Russell, Island Life. London, Macmillan, 1880. 526 pp. Deals in interesting fashion with the basic biology of island life. Out of print.

  Yonge, C. M. The Sea Shore. London, Collins, 1949. 311 pp. For the general reader, a charming and authoritative account of the life of the shore; based chiefly on British localities. Out of print.

  Ricketts, E. F. and Gavin, Jack. Between Pacific Tides. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1948. 365 pp. An ideal companion for exploring American Pacific shores.

  Exploration and Discovery

  Babcock, William H. Legendary Islands of the Atlantic; a study in medieval geography. New York, American Geographical Society, 1922. 385 pp. Deals with early exploration of the sea and the search for distant lands. Out of print.