The Book of the Ocean

by Ernest Ingersoll

In the whole history of human undertakings [declares Dr. John W. Draper, from whose striking sketch of this achievement in his “Intellectual Development of Europe” I am quoting]—in the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if, indeed, there is anything that equals, this voyage of Magellan’s. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of superhuman courage, superhuman perseverance—a display of resolution not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive or any suffering....

This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. Magellan reached a group of islands north of the equator—the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware that his labors had been successful. He met with adventurers from Sumatra. But, though he had thus grandly accomplished his object, it was not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. At an island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was killed, either, as has been variously related, in a mutiny of his men, or, as they declared, in a conflict with the savages, or insidiously by poison.... Hardly was he gone when his crew learned that they were actually in the vicinity of the Moluccas [having previously wandered too far north, and discovered the Philippines], and that the object of their voyage was accomplished....

And now they prepared to bring the news of their success back to Spain. Magellan’s lieutenant, Sebastian d’Elanco, directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again encountering the most fearful hardships. Out of his slender crew he lost 21 men. He doubled the Cape at last; and on September 7, 1522, in the port of St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, the good ship Vittoria came safely to an anchor. She had accomplished the greatest achievement in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth.

The immediate result of this voyage was to impress Spain’s sovereignty upon the East Indies; but a vaster and more far-reaching consequence was the influence it exerted, by its proof that the world was really a globe, to free men’s minds from blind belief in and guidance by a tradition, which had taught that the earth was a flat plain surrounded by water,—an error sanctioned by St. Augustine and other influential teachers. Magellan impressed a name upon the greatest of the oceans, and has his own name gloriously emblazoned upon both the map of the earth and the map of the sky in the southern hemisphere; but his greatest title to honor, after all, is that he struck dogma the hardest blow it ever received.

SEA-SURF AT SANTO DOMINGO.

The sixteenth century seems to have been, outside of the Arctic regions, an era of surveying rather than of exploration by sea, yet some notable work was done in the East, where all nations now entered as competitors in the trade, seizing upon every island or mainland shore that they could, and holding their possessions as long as possible. Even the English entered heartily into this rivalry, the great East India Company having been founded in 1599. With its trading we have nothing to do, but must note that it extended knowledge of Oceanica considerably, and added greatly to Europe’s information as to India, the Malayan peninsula and larger islands, China, and Japan. The Spanish and Portuguese found themselves so busy in defending that to which they already laid claim that they had little time to search for new lands; and this sort of enterprise fell mainly to the Dutch, who, now that the Netherlands were at last free from the long and cruel tyranny of Spain, were energetically making up for lost time. Their captain, Van Noort, went out by way of the Straits of Magellan to the Philippines, and got back to Rotterdam between 1598 and 1601. Another fleet made the same voyage fifteen years later; and in 1616 Cape Horn was rounded by Willem Cornelis Schouten, who gave the name of his home village, Hoorn, to that desolate terminus of South America.

For many years geographers had held belief in a vast “southern continent,”—Terra Australis,—and most of the islands found in the South Pacific were accidental results of some attempt to reach it. New Guinea had been sighted a century before, and perhaps Australia also, of which several navigators got glimpses here and there early in the sixteenth century, satisfying them that it also was a great island. It was not until this century was half gone, however, that the map of that quarter of the “South Sea” was filled out with any accuracy; and this was due to the skill and labor of an eminent Dutch voyager, Abel Janszen Tasman, who was despatched southward with two ships by the colonial government at Batavia, where the Dutch had already gained political ascendancy.

“This voyage,” we are told, “proved to be the most important to geography that had been undertaken since the first circumnavigation of the globe.” Tasman sailed from Batavia in the yacht Heemskirk, on the 14th of August, 1642, and from Mauritius on the 8th of October. On November 24 high land was sighted in 42° 30´ S., which was named Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), and, after landing there, sail was again made, and New Zealand (at first called Staatenland) was discovered on the 13th of December. Tasman communicated with the natives and anchored in what he called Murderers’ Bay, because several men were massacred there by the natives. Thence he took an irregular course east and north, until he arrived at the Friendly Isles of Cook. In April, 1643, he was off the north coast of New Guinea, having meanwhile sailed around New Britain and New Ireland (now New Mecklenburg), and on June 15 he returned to Batavia.

The contribution to sea-knowledge of the remaining voyages in this century were mainly in the direction of a better understanding of winds, currents, ice movements, tides, and an improvement in the methods of building, rigging, and navigating vessels intended for long voyages. Map-making received a great impetus and was especially cultivated by the Dutch, among whom Mercator became famous by inventing the useful projection that bears his name and is still most commonly used. Nevertheless, the improvement, especially in instruments of navigation, was slow. The astrolabe generally gave place to the cross-staff; and this to a better device called the back-staff, of which an improved form, invented by John Davis, remained long in use. This was called the Davis quadrant; and with it “the observer stood with his back to the sun, and, looking through the sights, brought the shadow of a pin into coincidence with the horizon.” Many variations of this instrument were made, until, in the middle of the next century, it was superseded by the sextant. Thus before the close of the seventeenth century, astronomers and navigators had learned how to determine latitude fairly accurately, and the sailor had prepared for him a variety of tables of stars, almanacs, and other mathematical guides. The determination of longitude was yet difficult, however, owing largely to the imperfection of timepieces; and it was not until the last year of the century, signalized by the first recorded sea-voyage made purely for scientific purposes, that much advance was made. This voyage, lasting two years (1699-1700), was undertaken by the eminent English astronomer Edmund Halley for the express purpose of obtaining information necessary to the improvement of the compass and methods of ascertaining the position of a ship at sea, was productive of results of the greatest service, and placed the science of navigation upon a sure footing. It was followed early in the next century by the establishment in England of the Longitude Board, a scientific commission charged with the duty of determining longitudes and studying navigation. From this board came the “Nautical Almanac,” which first appeared in 1767, but similar almanacs are now published annually by the governments of almost all maritime powers, and the editorship is esteemed in the United States one of the most honored positions in the naval service. These books contain ephemerides, or tables of positions for each day of that year of all the heavenly bodies, “predictions of astronomical phenomena, and the angular distances of the moon from the sun, planets, and fixed stars,” all referred to some stated meridian.