EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 213 



and never more needed than in our day. They are worth infinitely more than 

 all your wireless and broadcasting, and all the rest. But a third genius is needed 

 to complete the group of deities — it is the spirit of adventure. It is about this 

 genius that I wish to say a few words to you today. 



Who is she? Xo less than the spirit that urges mankind forward on the way 

 toward knowledge. The soul's mysterious impulse to fill the void spaces, 

 analogous to nature's horror vacui. 



Don't you remember how as a child, when some part of the house was closed, 

 and vaguely suspected of being haunted, you felt fearfully frightened, and yet 

 pined to get there, to meet those mysterious ghosts? The risks added to the 

 charm, and one day when you were alone you somehow managed to get in. But 

 how disappointed you were when you saw no ghosts after all. 



That was your awakening spirit of adventure. It is in every one of us. It is 

 our mysterious longing to do things, to fill life with something more than our 

 daily walk from home to office, and from office back home again. It is our 

 perpetual yearning to overcome difficulties and dangers, to see hidden things, 

 to penetrate into regions outside our beaten track — it is the call of the unknown — 

 the longing for the land of beyond — the divine force, deeply rooted in the soul of 

 man, which drove the first hunters out into new regions — the mainspring perhaps 

 of our greatest actions, winged human thought, knowing no bounds to its 

 freedom. 



We will find in the lives of men who have done anything, of those whom we 

 call great men, that it is this spirit of adventure, the call of the unknown, that 

 has lured and urged then on along their course. 



Kipling says in "Kim": "God causes men to be born * * * who have a lust 

 to go abroad at the risk of their lives and discover news- — today it may be of 

 far-off things — tomorrow of some hidden mountain— and the next day of some 

 nearby men who have done a foolishness against the state. These souls are 

 very few, and of these few, not more than 10 are of the best." But, my young 

 friends, though modesty is a becoming virtue, let us always believe that we are 

 in amongst those 10. 



For most of us ordinary people, life is a voyage from harbor to harbor along a 

 fairly safe coast. We run no great risks. There are plenty of shoals and sunken 

 rocks, no doubt, but we have reliable charts and sailing directions, and, if any- 

 thing unforeseen should happen, we can always put in for the night at the nearest 

 port. On the whole a fairly comfortable, and not very exciting existence. But 

 what about the things worth doing, the achievements, the aims to live and die for? 



No, although so many of us have to do it, coastal navigation is not really to 

 the liking of our race. Your ancestors and mine — the Norsemen — they did not 

 hug the coast. With their undaunted spirit of adventure, they hoisted their 

 sails for distant shores, and no fear of risks could keep them back — the call of 

 the unknown summoned them across the seas, and it was they who led the way 

 across the oceans. If it had not been for that spirit of adventure in our race, 

 how differently history would read today, and in my opinion the difference would 

 not be for the better. 



Let me tell you an example of the awakening spirit of adventure in the history 

 of the British Empire, how it led on the one hand to disaster, but on the other 

 to greatness. 



In the middle of the 16th century, England's power on the sea was very modest. 

 We hear, for instance, that in 1540 London had, with the exception of the royal 

 fleet, only four ships of more than 120 tons burden. Then awoke the idea that 

 it might be possible to find a short route to the riches of Cathay or China north 

 of Norway and Russia. 



This seemed a promising adventure. The merchants of London, a society 

 named "The Mystery and Company of the Merchant Adventurers," equipped 

 three ships, and placed the expedition under the command of the gallant general 

 Sir Hugh Willoughby, on account of his tall, handsome appearance, and of his 

 rare qualities as a soldier. 



The ships sailed in May, 1553, amid great expectations and much rejoicing. 

 Willoughby, with 2 ships and 62 men, had to winter on the coast of the Kola 

 Peninsula, and when Russian fishermen came to the place next spring, they found 

 two ships with only dead men on board. They had all died of scurvy. When 

 the two ships were subsequently sailed homeward one of them was wrecked on 

 the coast of Norway, and the new crew lost; the other, with 24 men on board, 

 disappeared, and was never heard of again. 



Such was the unlucky fate of those two ships in spite of their names: Bona 

 Esperanza and Bona Confidentia. But the third vessel, Edward Bonaventure, 

 under command of the able Richard Chancellor, was separated from the two other 



