CHAPTER VI.

STEAM IN THE BRITISH NAVY.

The British Navy—Marine Distances—Sunday at Sea—Icebergs and Tidal Waves.

Great as have been the changes brought about by steam navigation applied to commercial uses, the transformations of the navies of the world have been even more remarkable. It seems almost incredible that at the commencement of Her Majesty’s reign there were less than twenty steamships in the British navy, and none of them over 1,000 tons burthen. Of the 560 “sail” comprising the navy of 1836, ninety-five were “ships of the line.” The largest of these were styled “first-rate ships;” all of them wooden three-deckers, carrying 100 guns each, or more. One of the most difficult problems the Admiralty of that time had to solve was how to ensure a sufficient supply of oak timber for ship-building purposes. Forty full-grown trees to an acre of ground was accounted a good average; at that rate it required the growth of fifty acres to produce enough timber to build one seventy-four-gun ship; and as the oak required at least a hundred years to reach maturity, and the average life of a ship was not much over twenty-five years, the acreage required to produce the entire quantity was enormous. But the prospect of an oak famine was speedily dispelled by the substitution of iron and steel for wood in naval architecture.

Of the 689 vessels of all kinds constituting the British navy in 1897, there are only about twenty-two wooden ones, and these are nearly all used either as store ships or training ships, seldom, if ever, to leave their anchorage. And so entirely has the paddle-wheel been superseded by the screw-propeller, there are not left a dozen paddle-steamers in the entire fleet, including the Queen’s yachts and a few light-draught river boats. As already mentioned the compound engine was introduced into the navy in 1863. The twin screw was first applied to the _Penelope_ in 1868, and has since become universal in vessels of war, the result of these improvements being a marvellous increase of power and speed, with a great saving of fuel. Roughly speaking, a pound of coal is to-day made to produce four or five times the amount of power that it did in 1837.

Experiments had been made with steam power in the navy as early as 1841. In 1845 as many as nineteen sets of screw engines had been ordered for the Admiralty, but it was not until some years later that it came into general use. About 1851 the _Duke of Wellington_,[30] the _Duke of Marlborough_, the _Prince of Wales_, etc., all full-rigged ships, each armed with 131 “great guns,” were fitted with auxiliary steam-engines of from 450 to 2,500 horse-power. The introduction of iron armour-plating—first practised by the French towards the close of the Crimean war—presaged the beginning of the end of “the wooden walls of Old England,” and the disappearance forever of the beautiful white wings that had spread themselves out over every sea.

The _Warrior_, completed in 1861, was built entirely of iron, protected at vital points by armour-plating four and a half inches in thickness, which, at the time, was supposed to render her invulnerable. She was the precursor of a class of enormous fighting machines, which, however ungainly in appearance, have increased the sea-power of Britain to an incalculable extent. But, alas, for the four and a half inches of armour-plating! Developments in gunnery called for increased thickness of protective armour. The rivalry betwixt gun and armour-plate, keenly contested for years, has not yet been definitely settled; but when ships’ guns are actually in use weighing 110 tons and over, capable of throwing a shot of 1,800 lbs. with crushing effect a distance of twelve miles, and, on the other hand, when ships are to be found carrying twenty-four inches of protective iron and steel plating, it seems as if the climax had been nearly reached. In the meantime the insignificant-looking “torpedo destroyer” is coming to the front as one of the most formidable instruments of marine warfare. Although only about 200 feet long, with a displacement of perhaps 250 tons, they have yet a motive power of 5,000 to 6,000 horse-power, and a speed of from 25 to 35 knots an hour. Some of these destroyers are supposed to be strong enough to deal a death-blow to a first-class battle-ship, and all of them are swift enough to overhaul the fastest cruiser on the ocean. The estimation in which they are held by the Admiralty is apparent from the fact that already upwards of one hundred of them are in commission, and many more are being built. Twenty-five destroyers, it is said, can be built for the cost price of one battle-ship, and in actual warfare there would be exposed the same number of lives in fifteen destroyers as in one battle-ship.

Although no great naval battles have taken place to test the power of the steam navy of Britain, it has been occasionally demonstrated in the form of object lessons. The great Jubilee review of 1887 was a magnificent spectacle, when there were assembled at Spithead 135 ships of war, fully armed and manned, and ready to assert Britain’s sovereignty on the high seas. Two years later the exhibition was repeated in the presence of admiring Royalty. In January, 1896, shortly after President Cleveland’s threatening message to Congress, and while strained relations with Germany had arisen out of complications in South Africa, in an incredibly short space of time the famous “flying squadron” was mobilized and made ready for sea and any emergency that might transpire, without at all encroaching on the strength of the ordinary Channel fleet. The recent naval review in connection with Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, however, surpassed any previous display of the kind, not alone as a spectacular event, but as a telling demonstration of sea-power, such as no other nation possesses. On this occasion 166 British steamships of war were ranged in line extending to thirty miles in length, and this without withdrawing a single ship from a foreign station; the only regret expressed on this occasion being that not one of the old “wooden walls” was there with towering masts and billowy clouds of canvas to bring to mind the days and deeds of yore, and to emphasize the remarkable changes introduced by steam.

The following table published by the London _Graphic_ exhibits in convenient form the numerical strength of the British navy at the beginning of 1897:

═══════════════════════╤═════╤══════════╤══════════╤════════╤══════ │ │ │ │Officers│ Classification. │ No. │ Tons. │ Horse- │ and │ Guns. │ │ │ Power. │ Men. │ ───────────────────────┼─────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼────── Battleships, 1st class│ 29 │ 377,176 │ 355,000 │ 19,291 │ 1,301 " 2nd class│ 12 │ 114,030 │ 75,000 │ 5,672 │ 346 " 3rd class│ 11 │ 77,820 │ 57,600 │ 5,487 │ 365 " armoured │ 18 │ 136,960 │ 116,000 │ 10,386 │ 604 Coast Defence, │ │ │ │ │ Iron-clads │ 16 │ 61,410 │ 30,460 │ 3,211 │ 209 ├─────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼────── Total armored │ 86 │ 767,390 │ 634,060 │ 44,047 │ 2,825 Cruisers, 1st class │ 17 │ 157,950 │ 278,000 │ 10,514 │ 688 " 2nd class │ 57 │ 243,820 │ 461,100 │ 19,346 │ 1,359 " 3rd class │ 52 │ 110,685 │ 220,340 │ 10,994 │ 927 Gunboats, Catchers │ 33 │ 25,940 │ 113,300 │ 2,935 │ 203 " Coast Defence│ 42 │ 11,828 │ 5,860 │ 1,527 │ 106 Sloops │ 22 │ 23,305 │ 28,000 │ 2,764 │ 318 Gunboats, │ │ │ │ │ 1st class (police) │ 20 │ 15,810 │ 23,400 │ 1,670 │ 202 Miscellaneous Vessels │ 24 │ 112,712 │ 202,300 │ 4,998 │ 318 Torpedo Boats │ │ │ │ │ and Destroyers │ 250 │ 25,000 │ 300,000 │ 5,860 │ 690 ├─────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼────── Grand Total │ 689 │1,494,440 │2,266,360 │104,855 │ 7,638 ───────────────────────┴─────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────

First-class battle-ships are vessels of from 10,000 to 15,000 tons displacement, with steam-engines of 10,000 to 12,000 horse-power and attaining a speed of from seventeen to eighteen knots. To this belong the _Magnificent_, the _Majestic_, the _Renown_, the _Benbow_, etc. The first three carry each four 12-inch guns, twelve 6-inch, sixteen 12-pounders, twelve 3-pounders, eight machine guns, and five torpedo tubes. The _Benbow_ carries two 16.25-inch guns, each weighing 110 tons, in addition to her armament of smaller pieces. Second-class battle-ships, such as the _Edinburgh_ and _Colossus_, are under 10,000 tons, and with 5,500 horse-power develop a speed of about fourteen knots. Third-class battle-ships are represented by the _Hero_ and _Bellerophon_, vessels of 6,200 and 7,550 tons respectively.

First-class cruisers include such well-known ships as the _Blake_ and the _Blenheim_, each about 9,000 tons with 20,000 horse-power and twenty-two knots speed. The _Powerful_ and _Terrible_, also belonging to this class, are among the finest ships in the navy, each 14,200 tons, 25,000 horse-power, twenty-two knots speed, and having crews of 894 men. Additions to the British navy are not made arbitrarily, but with due regard to the enlarged and improved naval armaments of other countries, and with the determination to keep well ahead of all foreign rivals. Accordingly we find that an order was given by the Admiralty in 1897 for the construction of four additional battle-ships and four large cruisers of great speed, the former to be of the _Majestic_ type, but with heavier guns, more efficient armour and higher speed, at the same time of slightly less draft, so that if necessary they can pass through the Suez Canal. The cost of a first-class battle-ship, including armament, is about £700,000 sterling or about $3,500,000. A first-class cruiser of the ordinary type costs £450,000, but the _Powerful_ and _Terrible_, when ready for sea, are said to have cost £740,000 each. The latest type of torpedo destroyer costs £60,000. The largest projectiles used in the service (as in the _Benbow_) are 16¼ inches diameter, weigh 1,820 lbs., and are fired with a charge of 960 lbs. of powder. The average annual expenditure for construction and repairs is between four and five millions, but in 1896 it reached £7,500,000 sterling.

An interesting feature of the Diamond Jubilee review at Spithead, as on former occasions, was the presence of representatives of the mercantile marine in the garb of armed cruisers. By arrangements between the Admiralty and the Cunard, the P. & O., the White Star, and the Canadian Pacific Steamship companies, £48,620 were paid last year in the form of subventions, the vessels so held at the disposal of the Government being the _Campania_, _Lucania_, _Teutonic_, _Majestic_, _Himalaya_, _Australia_, _Victoria_, _Arcadia_, _Empress of India_, _Empress of Japan_, and _Empress of China_.

Many other mercantile steamers besides these are also at the disposal of the Government, being subsidized, and the facilities for converting them into armed cruisers at short notice are most complete, a reserve stock of breech-loading and machine guns being kept in readiness at convenient stations where the transformation can be effected in a few hours. The armament of the _Teutonic_ when she appeared at Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee review consisted of eight 4.7-inch quick-firing guns, and eight Nordenfeldt guns. As an example of how quickly a large auxiliary fleet might at any time be equipped, the case of the _Teutonic_ is in point. Leaving New York on Monday, June 14th, with her usual mails and passengers, she reached Liverpool on the 21st. Between that and the 24th she discharged her cargo, was thoroughly cleaned, took on her armour and full complement of naval officers and men, and having on board a host of distinguished guests, was at her appointed place in the review on Saturday, the 26th. Returning to Liverpool, she laid aside her guns, and on the 30th sailed for New York, as if nothing had happened. The _Campania_, which left New York two days later than the _Teutonic_, also appeared at the review in holiday dress, her only armament, however, on this occasion consisting of a large detachment of members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, among whom doubtless were many “great guns.”

MARINE DISTANCES.

A nautical mile, or “knot,” is about 6,082.66 feet; a statute, or land mile, 5,280 feet; the knot is, therefore, equal to 1.1515 mile. The circumference of the earth being divided geographically into 360 degrees, and each degree into 60 nautical miles, the circumference measures 21,600 knots, equal to about 25,000 statute miles. Knots can be readily reduced to statute miles by means of the following table:

───────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬───────┬───────┬──────── Knots │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ 4 │ 5 │ 10 │ 25 │ 100 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Miles │ 1.151│ 2.303│ 3.454│ 4.606│ 5.757│ 11.515│ 28.787│ 115.148 ───────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴────────

When the _Lucania_ averaged 22 knots, she was running at the rate of 25⅓ statute miles an hour; her longest day’s run (560 knots) was equal to 644¾ miles, about the distance covered by an ordinary fast express train on the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The old-fashioned ship’s “log” is a piece of wood in the form of a quadrant, loaded with lead at the circumference, to which is attached a line of 120 fathoms or more. Allowance being made for “stray line,” the balance is divided into equal distances by knots and small bits of coloured cloth. The distance between each knot is the same part of a mile that 30 seconds is of an hour (the 120th); the length between knots should thus be a trifle over 50 feet. The number of knots run out in half a minute (as measured by the sand-glass) indicate the number of nautical miles the ship is running per hour.

Even express steamships do not always sail between given points exactly as the crow flies. Various reasons lead to the selection of different routes, and even when following the same route, the actual distance run varies a little on each voyage. The Cunard Line, as a precautionary measure, has four sharply defined “tracks” across the Atlantic—two for the westward and two for the eastward voyages—one pair being used in summer and the other in winter, or the ice season.[31] The northern route, used from July 15th to January 14th, is considerably shorter than the southern route, which is followed from January 15th to July 14th. The distances by these routes are given by the company as follows:

Queenstown to Sandy Hook, by northern track 2,782 knots. " " " " southern " 2,861 " Sandy Hook to Queenstown, " northern " 2,809 " " " " " southern " 2,896 "

Daunt’s Rock, Queenstown, being about 244 knots from Liverpool, and Sandy Hook lightship 26 knots from New York, the distance from Liverpool landing-stage to the dock in New York by the Cunard’s northern track is about 3,052 knots, and by the southern track, 3,131 knots; from New York to Liverpool, 3,079 and 3,166 knots, respectively. Captain W. H. Smith says that the shortest distance that can be made between Liverpool and New York is 3,034 knots.

TABLE OF DISTANCES.[32]

Sandy Hook to Antwerp 3,336 knots. " Bremen 3,484 " " Copenhagen 3,800 " " Genoa 4,060 " " Gibraltar 3,200 " " Glasgow, _via_ North of Ireland 2,941 " " Hamburg 3,510 " " Havre 3,094 " " London 3,222 " " Naples 4,140 " " Southampton 3,100 " " Queenstown 2,809 " " Liverpool, _via_ northern route 3,088 " Quebec to Montreal, by the river 160 miles. " " by the Canadian Pacific Railroad 172 " " Rimouski 180 " " Belle Isle 747 " " St. John’s, Newfoundland 896 " " Moville, _via_ Belle Isle and North of Ireland 2,460 knots. " Liverpool, " " " " 2,633 " " " " Cape Race " " 2,801 " " " " " and South " 2,826 " " Glasgow " Belle Isle and North " 2,564 " " " " Cape Race " " 2,732 " " Queenstown, _via_ Belle Isle 2,473 " Moville to Liverpool 190 " Halifax to New York 538 " " Quebec 680 " " St. John’s, Newfoundland 520 " " Liverpool, _via_ North of Ireland 2,450 " " " " South " 2,475 " " London 2,723 " " Glasgow 2,381 " " St. John, N. B. 277 " " Portland, Me. 336 " " Sable Island 169 " " Boston, Mass 420 " St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Galway, Ireland, which is the shortest land-to-land voyage 1,655 " Liverpool to St. John, N. B., _via_ North of Ireland 2,700 " " Portland, Me., " " " 2,765 " " Boston, Mass., " " " 2,807 " " Queenstown 244 " Montreal to Halifax, _via_ Intercolonial Railroad 845 miles. " " " Canadian Pacific Railroad 756 " " Boston, " Central Vermont Railroad 334 " " Portland, Me., _via_ Grand Trunk Railroad 297 " " New York, _via_ Central Vermont Railroad 403 " " Toronto, " Grand Trunk Railroad 333 " " " " Canadian Pacific Railroad 338 " " " by water 376 " " Winnipeg, Man., _via_ Canadian Pacific Railroad 1,424 " " Vancouver, B.C., " " " " 2,906 " Vancouver to Yokohama, Japan 4,283 knots. " Shanghai, China 5,330 " " Hong Kong " 5,936 " " Honolulu, Hawaii 2,410 " " Sydney, N. S. W. 6,824 " Lech Ryan to Quebec, _via_ Belle Isle 2,513 " " North Sydney, C. B. 2,161 " " Halifax, N. S. 2,330 " " St. John, N. B. 2,580 " Milford Haven to Quebec, _via_ Belle Isle 2,587 " " Halifax 2,353 " " North Sydney, C. B. 2,186 "

SUNDAY AT SEA.

As far as circumstances permit, Sunday is observed with as much decorum on shipboard as it is on shore; that is, on the British and American lines. As for the continental steamers, the traveller may expect to become acquainted with a continental Sabbath, which, in most cases, means the ignoring of the day of rest altogether. On our Canadian steamships, weather permitting, public worship is usually held in the saloon, at 10.30 a. m. Sometimes there is an evening service as well, but more frequently an impromptu service of song, much enjoyed by the musical portion of the company, and that is frequently a large proportion of the passengers—ladies especially. The order of service is entirely at the discretion of the captain. In the absence of a clergyman, the captain reads the morning service and the Scripture lessons for the day from the Book of Common Prayer. If there is a Protestant minister on board it is customary to invite him to take the whole service; if there be more than one minister available, each of them may be asked to take part in the service. On the New York liners, as a rule, there is no sermonizing, no matter how many ministers may be on board. The captain and purser read the morning service, or portions of it; a couple of hymns are sung; a collection is taken up for the benefit of the Seamen’s Home, or kindred object, and that is all. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. When the captain is prevented by his duties on deck from conducting the service, a clergyman, if there be one among the passengers, is usually asked to assist. A deviation from the rule is often made when a minister of outstanding celebrity happens to be on board. Ministers like the late Dr. Norman Macleod, or Dr. William M. Taylor, would invariably be asked to preach, no matter what line they travelled by. The service-book of the Cunard Company consists of selections from the Book of Common Prayer, with the addition of a form of prayer prepared by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, for the use of sailors and persons at sea. A singularly beautiful prayer it is:

“Almighty God, who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea; under whose protection we are alike secure in every place, and without whose providence we can nowhere be in safety; look down in mercy on us, thine unworthy servants, who are called to see thy wonders on the deep, and to perform the duties of our vocation in the great waters. Let thine everlasting arm be underneath and round about us. Preserve us in all dangers; support us in all trials: conduct us speedily and safely on our voyage, and bring us in peace and comfort to our desired haven.

“Be pleased to watch over the members of our families, and all the beloved friends whom we have left behind. Relieve our minds from all anxiety on their account by the blessed persuasion that thou carest for them. Above all, grant that our souls may be defended from whatsoever evils or perils may encompass them; and that, abiding steadfast in the faith, we may be enabled so to pass through the waves and storms of this uncertain world, that finally we may come to the land of everlasting rest, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The service-book also contains the Psalms of David in prose, and a collection of 107 hymns, including four of the Scotch paraphrases. The hymn most frequently sung at sea is the one beginning with “Eternal Father, strong to save,” and next to it, “O God, our help in ages past.” Evangelistic services of a less stately kind than in the saloon are often held in the afternoon in the second cabin or steerage, and are usually much appreciated; while in the evening the deck hands will join with groups of emigrants in singing Moody and Sankey hymns, such as “Revive us Again,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “Whiter than Snow,” etc. It is often remarkable to notice how familiar people of diverse creeds and nationalities are with these hymns, and how heartily they unite in singing them.

A favourite text with preachers on shipboard is Rev. xxi. 1: “And there was no more sea.” The theme, associated, as it is, with so many fathoms of profundity, has yielded to many forms of treatment. I remember that a young minister, my room-mate, by the way, on his first voyage out from Quebec, chose this for his text, and that he launched out, as well he might, on the charms of the sea in poetical flights of fancy. But the while we were sailing in smooth water. When outside the Straits he laid his head on the pillow and underwent a change of environment, recovering from which, after many days, he vowed that should he ever preach from that text again, he would have something more to say about it. I remember, too, that an elderly gentleman—a Presbyterian of the Presbyterians—was asked by the captain to preach one Sunday morning. He readily complied, taking it for granted that he was to conduct the whole service. Imagine his chagrin when an Anglican brother unexpectedly appeared on the scene and went through the whole of the long service of the Church of England. With the utmost composure, _Πρεσβύτερος_ simply ignored the beautiful liturgical service, commenced _de novo_, and went through the whole service afresh, in orthodox Presbyterian fashion, to the surprise of the congregation and the discomfiture of the waiters, whose time for setting the lunch-table was long past.

A distinctive and pleasing feature of these Sunday services at sea, especially in the larger steamships, which often carry more passengers than would fill an ordinary church, is the heartiness with which the representatives of various religious denominations unite in the services. The lines of demarcation that separate them when ashore seem to be lost sight of at sea. Casual acquaintanceship here frequently ripens into closer friendship; people begin to see eye to eye, and soon the conviction grows stronger that the doctrinal points on which all professing Christians are agreed are much more important than the things about which they differ. It would do some narrow-minded souls a world of good to spend a few Sundays at sea.

The office for the burial of the dead at sea is very solemn and affecting. In the days of sailing ships, when voyages lasted so much longer, deaths from natural causes at sea were more frequent than now. But the order of service is the same. The body of the deceased person might be sewed up in a hammock—indeed, it usually was—or the carpenter may have made a rough coffin for it. In either case it was heavily loaded with iron at the foot. A stout plank with one end resting on the bulwark forms the bier on which is laid the corpse, covered with an ensign. The captain, the chief engineer, the ship’s doctor and purser, with a detachment of the crew, and a few of the passengers, make up the funeral party. Portions of the Church of England’s beautiful service for the burial of the dead are read: “I am the Resurrection and the life.” ... “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” ... “We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” ... “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live,” etc. The ship’s engines are then stopped for a few seconds while the service proceeds—“We therefore commit his body to the deep, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead.”

The ensign is removed. The inward end of the plank is raised, and the mortal remains are plunged into the greatest of all cemeteries; sometimes with scant ceremony, perhaps, but always impressing on the mind of the spectator a deeply pathetic incident that will never be forgotten.

“And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still.”

ICEBERGS AND TIDAL WAVES.

Icebergs and bewildering fogs, as has been already said, are a large element of danger in the St. Lawrence route. The passengers who sailed with me on the _Lake Superior_, from Montreal on July 1st, 1896, will not soon forget the magnificent display of icebergs which they witnessed on the Sunday following. From early morning until midnight, for a distance of more than 250 miles, the ship’s course lay through an uninterrupted succession of icebergs—a procession, it might be called, on a grand scale of masses of ice in all manner of fantastic shapes and of dazzling whiteness—travelling to their watery graves in the great Gulf Stream of the south. Mountains of ice, some of them might be called. On one of them a grisly bear was alleged to have been seen sulkily moving to and fro, as if meditating how, when and where his romantic voyage was to come to an end. The day was calm and cloudless—a perfect day for such a marvellous exhibition. It might have been otherwise, and how different may be imagined from reading what appeared in the English papers a few weeks later—the account of a ship’s narrow escape from destruction in this identical locality:

“STRUCK AN ICEBERG.—The SS. _Etolia_ on her voyage from Montreal to Bristol narrowly escaped destruction from collision with an iceberg twenty-four hours after leaving the eastern end of Belle Isle straits. A dense fog had set in, the lookout was doubled, and the engines slowed; presently the fog lifted, but only to come down again thicker than ever. In a very short time the lookout called out, ‘Ice ahead!’ The engines were promptly stopped, then reversed at full speed. Meanwhile the towering monster bears down on the ship and in a few seconds is on top of it. It was a huge berg, rising high above the masts of the steamer, which it struck with such a crash that some three hundred tons of ice in huge pieces came down on the forecastle. Fortunately most of it rebounded into the sea, but some forty or fifty tons remained on the ship’s deck. The ship trembled under the blow from stem to stern; her bows were smashed in, but the leakage was confined to the fore-peak. In this battered condition the _Etolia_ lay without a movement of the engines for thirty-six hours until the fog cleared, when Captain Evans had the satisfaction of proceeding on his course and bringing his passengers and crew safely into Bristol harbour.”

A still more serious disaster was reported on August 25th of the same year (1896):

“The captain of the steamer _Circassia_, of the Anchor Line, had a story to tell, on her arrival at quarantine early this morning, of picking up a captain and his twenty-two men on the high seas from three open boats. It was Captain Burnside and the entire crew of the British tramp steamer _Moldavia_, bound from Cardiff to Halifax with coal, who were rescued by the timely approach of the _Circassia_. During the dense fog over the sea on last Wednesday, the _Moldavia_ ran into a huge iceberg and stove her bows so badly that she began to fill rapidly. It was 5.30 o’clock in the afternoon. As soon as a hasty examination showed that it would be impossible to save his ship, Captain Burnside ordered the lifeboats provisioned and cleared away, and as soon as it could be done the steamer was abandoned and shortly afterwards sank. The lifeboats kept together and watched for a passing vessel, and thirty-five hours later the _Circassia’s_ lights were seen approaching. Blue lights were at once shown by the occupants of the lifeboats, and the _Circassia_ altered her course. When near enough, Captain Boothby, of the _Circassia_, hailed the lifeboats and told the men that he would pick up the boats and their occupants. Accordingly the davits’ tackle were lowered, and as each life-boat approached she was hooked on and raised bodily, occupants and all, to the deck of the _Circassia_.”

The icebergs of the North Atlantic are natives of Greenland or other Arctic regions where glaciers abound. They carry with them evidence of their terrestrial birth in the rocks and debris with which they are frequently ballasted. The glacier, slowly moving over the beds of rivers and ravines, ultimately reaches the seaboard, to be gradually undermined by the action of the waves, and, finally, to fall over into deep water and be carried by winds and currents into the open ocean. In their earlier stages icebergs are constantly being augmented in size by storms of snow and rain, and by the freezing of the water washed over them by the waves. They are of all sizes, from a mere hummock to vast piles of ice half a mile in diameter, and showing an altitude above the sea of two or three hundred feet, sometimes rising to a height of five and even six hundred feet, and that is scarcely more than one-eighth of the whole mass, for a comparatively small portion only of the bulk projects above the surface, as may be plainly seen by dropping a piece of ice in a tumbler full of water. In proof of this, it is by no means uncommon to find icebergs of ordinary dimensions stranded in the straits of Belle Isle in seventy or eighty fathoms of water. Being frequently accompanied by fog—of which they may be the chief cause—they are often met with unawares, though their nearer approach is usually discovered by the effect which they produce on the air and the water surrounding them, suggesting to the careful navigator the frequent use of the thermometer to test the temperature of the water where ice is likely to be encountered. They are seldom met with below the 40th parallel.

Field-ice, covering a surface of many square miles, with a thickness of from ten to twenty feet, is frequently fallen in with off the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. Though less dangerous to navigation than the iceberg, it is often a serious obstruction. Vessels that incautiously run into a pack of ice of this kind, or have drifted into it, have often found themselves in a _maze_, and have been detained for weeks at a time, and not without some risk to their safety in heavy weather.

* * * * *

TIDAL WAVES.—Notwithstanding elaborate treatment of the subject by hydrographers, stories about ocean tidal waves are most frequently relegated by landsmen into the same category with tales of the great sea-serpent. Sailors, however, have no manner of doubt as to their existence and their force. During violent storms it has been noticed that ocean waves of more than average height succeed each other at intervals—some allege that every seventh wave towers above the rest. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that a sudden change of wind when the sea is strongly agitated frequently produces a wave of surpassing magnitude. Other causes, not so obvious, may bring about the same result, producing what in common parlance is called a “tidal wave.” This is quite different from the tidal wave proper, which periodically rushes up the estuaries of rivers like the Severn, the Solway, the Garonne, the Hoogly and the Amazon. In the upper inlets of the Bay of Fundy, where the spring-tides rise as high as seventy feet, the incoming tide rushes up over naked sands in the form of a perpendicular white-crested wave with great velocity. The tidal wave of the Severn comes up from the Bristol Channel in a “bore” nine feet high and with the speed of a race-horse, while the great bore of the Tsien-Tang-Kiang in China is said to advance up that river like a wall of water thirty feet in height, at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, sweeping all before it.[33] The ocean tidal wave dwarfs these and all other waves by its huge size and tremendous energy. The effective pressure of such a wave being estimated at 6,000 pounds to the square foot, it is easy to understand how completely it becomes master of the situation when it topples over on the deck of a ship. Only once in the course of a good many voyages has the writer been an eye-witness of its tremendous force. The occasion was thus noticed in the New York papers of the 2nd and 3rd of August, 1896:

“The American liner _Paris_ and the Cunarder _Etruria_, which arrived on Saturday, had a rough-and-tumble battle before daylight on Tuesday morning with a summer gale that had an autumn chill and a winter force in it. The wind blew a whole gale and combed the seas as high as they are usually seen in the cyclonic season. The crest of a huge wave tumbled over the port bow of the _Etruria_ with a crash that shook the ship from stem to stern, and momentarily checked her speed; a rent was made in the forward hatch through which the water poured into the hold, flooding the lower tier of staterooms ankle-deep. The ship’s bell was unshipped, and it carried away the iron railing in front of it, snapping iron stanchions two inches in diameter as if they had been pipe-stems. The _Paris_, about the same hour and in the same locality, shipped just such a sea as that which hit the _Etruria_, but received less damage. It fared much worse, however, with the sailing ship _Ernest_, from Havre, which was fallen in with on the morning of the gale showing signals of distress. The French liner _La Bourgogne_, came to her rescue and gallantly took off the captain and his crew of eleven men, abandoning the shattered ship to her fate with ten feet of water in her hold.”

It is not often that a tidal wave visits the St. Lawrence, but in October, 1896, the SS. _Durham City_, of the Furness Line, when off Anticosti, was struck by a big wave which carried away her deck-load, including sixty eight head of cattle and everything movable. It was only one sea that did the damage, but it made a clean sweep.

By a figure of speech, ocean waves are frequently spoken of as running “mountains high,” and the popular tendency is doubtless towards exaggeration. The estimate of experts is that storm waves frequently rise to forty feet, and sometimes even to sixty or seventy feet in height from the wave’s base to crest.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] The _Duke of Wellington_ was 240.6 feet long, 60 feet beam, 3,826 tons burthen, and 2,500 horse-power. She was engined by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow, with geared engines and wooden cogs, and made 10.2 knots an hour on her trial trip in 1853. The _Rattler_, of 1851, was 179½ feet long, 32¾ feet beam, had geared engines of 436 horse-power, and attained a speed of 10 knots.

[31] See also p. 90.

[32] Based on a compilation by Captain W. H. Smith.

[33] “Encyclopedia Brit.,” Vol. xvii., p. 581, 8th Ed.