Curiosities of Civilization

by Andrew Wynter

With regard to the defective mechanical construction of compasses, it must be admitted that great improvements have taken place of late years, and the chief credit, we believe, is due to the British Admiralty. Nearly twenty years ago they instituted a Committee of Inquiry, and the silent working of the measures then advocated, and the adoption of the improvements suggested first under the direction of the late Captain Johnston, and more recently under that of Mr. Frederick Evans, R.N., have infused into the manufacturers, and a large portion of the mercantile marine and shipowners, a degree of caution, skill, and attention to details, which has brought forth good fruit. A large portion of the superior compasses of the United States navy are manufactured in this country, entirely on the Admiralty pattern, and several foreign governments have recently obtained the same instruments as models. It must not however be supposed that defective compasses have ceased to exist. Our coasting vessels and many of our noble sailing ships are miserably equipped, and there are many captains who still look on the compass as a cheap and common article, fit to be classed with hooks and thimbles and other articles of the boatswain’s storeroom.

There can be no doubt that great errors in navigation are induced by inattention to placing the compasses. It is common to see the binnacle within two feet, and even less, of the massive iron-work of the rudder wheel, which again is in immediate contiguity with an iron sternpost. The local deviation is consequently great, magnet adjustment is had recourse to, and a temporary alleviation of the evil follows, which is only magnified on the ship approaching some distant port. Numerous examples are on record of iron being introduced by some addition to the equipment of the ship, which has perhaps been lost in consequence within a few hours after quitting port.

Among the causes which thus operate, we may name the fancy rails leading to state-cabins and saloons. These, beneath a highly-polished covering of brass, often conceal many hundredweights of iron. Cabin stoves and funnels, immediately under and alongside the compass, are frequently unsuspected. A noble transport, during the late war, carrying troops and stores, pursued her course by day with unswerving fidelity, but at night the compass was as wild as the waves themselves. After diligent search it was found that the brazier, in preparing the binnacle lamps, had introduced a concealed iron-wire hoop to strengthen their frame-work. The stowage of iron in cargo does not receive the attention it deserves, and we consider it should be imperative for every vessel which carries it to be swung for the local deviation before quitting port, and a certificate duly lodged before clearing the Customs. When the Agamemnon adjusted compasses preparatory to sailing upon the last unsuccessful expedition to lay the Atlantic cable, it was discovered that the presence of the enormous coil in her hold caused a deviation of no less than seventeen degrees! Had she been a merchant ship, no similar verification would have been made, and the sign-post which showed the path upon the trackless waters would only have pointed to mislead.

It is remarkable how much misapprehension on the nature of magnetic action exists even among men of high intelligence. A competent witness, in a recent law-trial, in a case of wreck, arising chiefly from a want of knowledge of the laws of magnetism in the navigation of the ship, stated that seamen in general believed, that if a cargo of iron was covered over, its effects were cut off from the compass. A leading counsel in the case sympathized with the general ignorance, because he confessed that he shared it. The adjustment of compasses by magnets is a most delicate operation, and has received much attention from some of our leading men in science. An able committee, under the auspices of the Board of Trade, are now engaged, in the midst of an iron navy, in the port of Liverpool, in elucidating the whole of the subject. We feel bound, however, to record our opinion against the indiscriminate employment of all the nostrums prescribed by the compass-doctors or quacks at many of our seaports. Let the shipowner consult such reports of the Liverpool Committee as have been already published, or follow the Admiralty plan of having at least one good compass in a position free from all magnetic influences. In some of the large ocean steamers a standard compass is fitted high up in the mizen mast, and we hear that it is proposed to build a special stage on board the Great Eastern, in order to keep the compass from being affected by the immense body of iron in her fabric.

A perusal of the evidence given in those inquiries which take place relative to the loss of ships, under the Mercantile Marine Act, would lead to the supposition that defective charts were even a greater cause of wrecks than compass defaults; but this is not the case. The fact is, incorrect charts afford an excuse for a master who may have lost his ship, which is but too readily accepted by the members of courts of inquiry and of courts martial. The defence set up for the wreck of the Great Britain steamer, in Dundrum Bay, on the east coast of Ireland, was, that St. John’s Light, placed two or three years previously, was not inserted in the most recent charts of the Irish Channel procurable at Liverpool, and that consequently it was mistaken for the light at the Calf of Man. But these two lights are at least thirty miles apart, and it is monstrous to suppose that a steamer should be so much out of her reckoning within a few hours of leaving port. Again, in the more recent case of the wreck of the Madrid steamer, off Point Hombre, at the entrance of Vigo Bay, several masters were examined, who stated that they had invariably passed equally close to the same headland, in reliance on the correctness of the chart. “Under these circumstances,” said the Court, “the loss of the Madrid cannot be attributed to the wrongful act or default of the captain.” His certificate was therefore returned; and, at the same time, he was informed that, as a general rule, “150 yards is not a sufficiently wide berth to allow in passing headlands.” We should think not; and furthermore we imagine that, if the omission of every insignificant rock close to shore, in government charts, is to be taken as an excuse for shaving a dangerous headland, we may expect to hear of many repetitions of the disaster. The Orion, wrecked on the west coast of Scotland, and the much-abused Transit, in the Banca Strait, owed their fate to the unseaman-like love of hugging the shore.

It must be admitted, however, that the charts in common use on board merchant ships are very faulty, both with respect to the position and character of lights, buoys, and beacons, and to the variation of the compass, which is not unfrequently half a point wrong,—an error which may be fatal in shaping a course up Channel or in a narrow sea. From this great evil the seaman has, at present, no protection. The remedy lies in the hands of the legislature, who have only to compel all chart-sellers to warrant their charts corrected up to the latest date, at least with respect to lights and buoys. There are but three or four publishers of private charts, as far as we are aware, in the United Kingdom; their stock of plates cannot be very large, and, once examined and set right, the corrections and additions could be easily inserted. Either the Board of Trade or the Admiralty should be entrusted with this duty. The latter are obliged to correct their own charts, and we understand it is the practice of the hydrographer to cause every new light, or change of light, or buoy, or beacon, to be inserted in the plate within twenty-four hours of the time of the intelligence reaching the Admiralty. A large number of notices to mariners—upwards, we believe, of a thousand a-week—are printed and published, both by the Trinity House and the Admiralty, and distributed among those connected with shipping; and every chart-seller should be bound under a penalty to give proof to the Board of Trade or to the Admiralty that he had inserted the corrections in his copper-plate within forty-eight hours of the appearance of the notice.

It is a startling fact that the materials for constructing charts, even of parts of the waters which wash the shores of Europe, are not yet in existence. Of the coast of Europe generally we are tolerably well informed, although there are many portions that require closer examination; but on the African and Asiatic portions of the Mediterranean, the early seat of civilization and the best known sea in the world, there is still much to be done. When M. de Lesseps brought forward his romantic proposal for a Suez Canal, no survey existed of the coast of Egypt from Alexandria to El Arish. Of Syria we know nothing accurately; Cyprus, Rhodes, and the western half of Crete, are still almost blanks. But it is in the eastern seas and in the Asiatic Archipelago that we are most at fault. The Persian Gulf, portions of the coast of India, Ceylon, Burmah, Malacca, Cochin China, the Yellow Sea, Corea, Japan, the southern and eastern parts of Borneo, Celebes, &c., are hardly so correctly mapped as the mountains in the moon. The north and east coasts of New Guinea, again, are unsurveyed. As long as the Spice Islands, and the unknown lands washed by the Indian seas, were given up to pirates, and to the imagination of poets, this want was not felt; but now that our clippers swarm in these seas, and that Australia herself is beginning to trade there extensively, we shall assuredly hear of fearful shipwrecks from want of surveys. Then, indeed, it will be truly said, that imperfect charts are the cause of shipwrecks, unless, when India passes under the Imperial Government, vigorous steps are taken to remedy this grievous defect.

Closely connected with the question of imperfect charts, is the state of the lights, buoys, and beacons around the coast—those fixed and floating sentinels set around the island to guide and direct the weather-beaten mariner. A few years ago we should have had to bewail our shortcomings in the number of these aids to navigation, and have had to point to them as prominent causes of shipwreck. The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Lighthouses, in 1845, shows the want that then existed, not only on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, but even at the entrance of the River Thames. Much, however, has recently been done. It appears, from the address of the Prince Consort, at the annual Trinity House dinner, that 77 lighthouses, 32 floating light-vessels, and 420 buoys and beacons, under charge of the corporation, are now distributed around the coasts of England alone. Great praise is due to the elder brethren of the Trinity House for their care in lighting the Prince’s Channel, and especially for their admirable works now in course of construction under Mr. James Walker, C.E.; among which we may instance the new lighthouses at the Needles, at Whitby, and at St. Ives, the light-tower on the Bishop Rock, off Scilly, and on the Smalls off Pembroke. In Scotland, also, several new lights have been established; and some of the buoys have been coloured on a systematic plan—red buoys being placed on the starboard hand, and black buoys on the port hand, on entering a harbour from seaward, according to the mode adopted in France, Belgium, and Holland. This system, however, presents difficulties where there are several channels, as at the mouth of the Thames; but there are many places in which it might be applied with advantage. At present, we believe, the river Tees is buoyed on exactly the reverse plan; and in some of the large ports of the kingdom a local scheme is adopted, which completely closes the navigation to all but the local pilots, for whose special advantage this secret system appears to be maintained. The adversaries of a simple and uniform method of buoying the coast do, indeed, urge that it would put the key of our harbours into the hands of our enemies; but this argument is so puerile that it is hardly worth notice. If we cannot maintain the integrity of our waters by force, we certainly shall never maintain it by cunning.

The want of lights on the shores of Ireland has long been a cause of complaint. Till within a few years, on a coast which is the land-fall of nearly all vessels that cross the Atlantic from Canada, Nova Scotia, Boston, and New York, there were spaces of sixty, seventy, and eighty miles without a light! Yet during all this time light dues were levied on the Americans, and other nations, who were thus treated to a sample of Irish reciprocity. On the coasts of the United States there were ample lights and no light dues, while on the coast of Ireland the lights were few and the dues heavy. We trust that the royal commission which, on the motion of Lord Clarence Paget, has lately made its report respecting the state of the lights and buoys of the country, will give a stimulus to the improvement which has already begun, and either get rid of these light dues or recommend a more equitable method of levying them. One penny a ton on the actual tonnage of the country, paid once a year, would be sufficient to maintain all the lights in the kingdom, and would be more simple than the present complicated system of paying every fresh voyage, which bears so unjustly on the coasting trade. The time, we believe, is close at hand when the lights themselves will be revolutionized. It is of the last importance to the mariner that the brightest and best light that science can furnish shall be held out upon the sunken rock, or perpetually maintained upon the dangerous headland. Yet it cannot be denied that we have nothing better than oil lamps for the purpose; and though the most profound science and the most delicate art have been employed to make the most of this feeble power, the fact remains, that we have not advanced beyond the oil-wick of the last century in our attempts to provide a light which will throw its beams far and wide over the sea, and pierce through the fogs and drifting snow-storms of the dark winter nights. It is not less strange that we are behind the French, and even the Spaniards, with respect to the mechanism necessary to concentrate the little light we have. In the two former countries the vast majority of the lighthouses are upon the dioptric principle, the whole light of the lamps being concentrated in occasional flashes, by means of a powerful system of lenses, forming a complete cage of glass. England, on the contrary, employs in most of her lighthouses the old metal reflectors; and, as Lord Clarence Paget justly observes, the voyager leaving Folkstone will clearly appreciate the difference between the two systems, by comparing the dioptric light flashing from the far distant Cape Griz Nez with the feeble spark of the English reflector light close to him at Dungeness. It has been the great aim of the constructors of these powerful lenses to throw all the light of the lamps into parallel rays, so that only a thin disc of light is cast upon the sea; but, as Mr. Findlay truly remarked in his paper read at the Society of Arts, we have at last over-refined, and a fearful shipwreck has already been the result. The Dunbar, after making a prosperous voyage to our antipodes, was wrecked at the Sydney headland, within sight of her port. This dangerous cliff was surmounted by a reflector light which sent a thin disc of rays, under which the ship passed in a fog. Had a few divergent rays been allowed to light the danger at her feet, she would have escaped her fate.

Another great and increasing difficulty arising from the limited capabilities of the present burners, is the fact that steamers are beginning to show lights as powerful as those exhibited in lighthouses of the inferior order and in the light ships. Hence a confusion is growing up between the fixed and the moving lights, which threatens to produce most disastrous consequences. As recently as February last, the Leander, an American barque, proceeding down St. George’s Channel, saw a light which she mistook for that on the Tuskar Rock, and, when too late, discovered that it belonged to the screw steamer North America, which was coming right ahead. A fearful collision was the consequence, and the unfortunate ship with nearly all her crew was sent to the bottom. It has been found absolutely necessary to change the light in the Nore light-ship from a fixed to a revolving one, to distinguish it from the numerous powerful lights carried by steamers at anchor or when passing along the Thames.