THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



then as her cursing crew handled her lofty royals and 

 skysails to little effect. 



Fortunately for the mariners of those days, they knew 

 where they were if they kept to the trades, north or south 

 of the doldrums. One of the first of the world's mariners 

 to discover the reliability of the trades was Columbus. It 

 was with their assistance that he was able to discover 

 America, even as Magellan used them later to sail across 

 the Pacific. But the steadiness of the winds, which helped 

 Columbus and his crew to gain their outward objective, 

 caused Columbus serious trouble after his ship had 

 turned round and was sailing in the other direction. For 

 the superstitious crew expected the wind to turn with 

 them and blow them safely home again. 



When they found that it stubbornly refused to reverse 

 its direction to please them, they declared that the 

 Almighty was angry with them for having discovered 

 America and its secrets and was even using His winds to 

 show His displeasure. Columbus had all he could do to 

 control a crew so enthusiastic on the outward voyage, 

 when success was still a matter of risk and peril, and so 

 ungrateful and inconsistent on the homeward voyage, 

 with success assured. 



In each hemisphere there are three wind zones — one 

 formed by winds which blow slantwise from the polar 

 regions to the equator, another by winds which blow 

 slantwise from the equator to the pole, and a third formed 

 by winds that blow mainly from west to east. In the 

 northern hemisphere these are north and south of the 

 horse latitudes, which lie between 30° and 35° north. 

 The name ''horse latitudes" (applied to a sea area 

 which, like that of the doldrums, is often becalmed) 

 has been passed down from the world's sailing-ship days, 

 when there was a considerable trade in horses between 

 England and Jamaica. It often happened that ships 

 loaded with horses were so long delayed in these regions 

 by lack of wind that water ran very short. To conserve 



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