The approximate distance between Sandy Hook (light-ship), New York, and Queenstown (Roche’s Point) is 2800 miles. The fastest day’s run on record, however, was made by the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, of the Nord Deutscher Lloyds Line, averaging 22.35 knots (or nautical miles, of 6080 feet each) per hour, equal to about 25½ land miles. From Sandy Hook to Queenstown deduct 4 hours 22 minutes for difference in time. Queenstown to Sandy Hook add 4 hours 22 minutes for difference in time.
This eager rivalry in respect to speed, which insures not only a larger and more influential passenger service, but increased business in fast freight and in the carriage of mail—both highly remunerative—is only one feature of the sharp competition between these ocean carriers as to which shall offer the greatest advantages, and this is of benefit to the public, though it has not greatly cheapened fares.
EMIGRANT PASSENGERS EMBARKING UPON A TRANSATLANTIC “LINER.”
Men travel far more now than they were wont in the time of “good Queen Bess,” or even of our own grandfathers, and the few travelers for pleasure of those days would scarcely believe their eyes if they could look into the floating palaces—almost cities—in which we brave old ocean now. A ship of one of the better passenger lines is a little world in itself, containing almost all the appliances of the best modern hotels on shore, and reducing the inevitable inconveniences of life on shipboard by clever devices of every sort. In the one matter of ventilation the ingenuity of the builders is particularly taxed. Money is spent lavishly in the finishing and furnishing of these great ships, not to mention the expense of running them, which sometimes amounts in cost of fuel, food, and wages to $5000 a day.
The steamship lines between New York and Great Britain do not steer straight across the Atlantic, but on their way to this country keep well to the northward, so as to get to the west of the Gulf Stream, and into the favorable current flowing south from Baffin’s Bay; then they skirt Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Cape Cod. Going east, however, the steamers—and sailing-vessels too—keep farther south, and work along with the Gulf Stream as far as they can. From Europe to South America, or through the Straits of Magellan on their way to the South Sea islands or Australia (though this route is not often taken), or to the Pacific coast of the Americas, vessels keep close down the African coast, and then steer straight ahead from Guinea to Brazil, and on down the American coast. (Put a map before you and you will understand these courses better.) Sailing-vessels to Europe or the United States from Cape Horn, however, would swing far out into the South Atlantic to avoid heading against the southward coast-current and to get the benefit of the southwest trade-wind and the equatorial currents. Between New York and the Cape of Good Hope the track is nearly straight.
In the Pacific, the steamer-route between San Francisco or Vancouver and China and Japan, instead of being as direct as a parallel of latitude, takes a southerly course when bound west, and a northerly course when bound east, the exact lines varying with the seasons as the prevailing winds and currents change. What these winds and currents are is explained in another chapter; but it is interesting to note that there is a difference of many miles in the ordinary westerly and easterly courses, the latter being much the shorter, although the vessels of the Canadian Pacific Line often sail so far north with the Japan warm current as to sight the Aleutian Islands. Sailing-vessels, moreover, curve so much farther south than steamers in going west from San Francisco, in order to take advantage of the equatorial current and the trade-winds, that the space is a thousand miles north and south between ships outward bound and those coming home. Between California and Honolulu a steamer takes a bee-line, but sailing-vessels find it best to make detours. In summer, when outward bound, this amounts to steering straight northward until under latitude forty degrees, before turning westward, making an angular course that looks very unnecessary to a landsman.
A “WHALEBACK” FREIGHT STEAMER, ALSO ADAPTED TO PASSENGER SERVICE.
I have said that the finding of a sea-route to the East around the Cape of Good Hope was a great boon to western Europe, and advanced commerce. It remained so until within the last seventy-five years. Lately, the corsairs being out of the way, and safety guaranteed in Egypt, merchants and sailors both began to wish they had a shorter route between England and India. Then, with immense labor and sacrifice, the canal was cut across the Isthmus of Suez, and commerce returned to its ancient channel through the Red Sea, saving thousands of miles of weary distance.