The Mighty Deep 



it can generally perform three journeys in the 

 same time that a sailing-vessel can manage one. 



All over the world, in every sea, are thousands 

 upon thousands of ships of every kind and de- 

 scription, night and day speeding onward, each 

 to its destined port. Lines of Passenger -ships 

 regularly plough the main, starting on fixed days, 

 and seldom failing to arrive on fixed days. 

 Merchant ships innumerable follow certain routes, 

 going from country to country over the Ocean, 

 carrying the world's produce. Mighty Navies 

 of war-vessels, huge in bulk and terrible in 

 possibilities, rest like sleeping leviathans upon 

 the bosom of the deep, or steam from point to 

 point with resistless energy. 



All this denotes a wonderful change since the 

 days, when a few roughly-made boats used to 

 creep round the coasts of a few inhabited 

 countries. 



Wide though the ocean be, with thousands of 

 miles of water unbroken save by occasional 

 islands, the number of ships now always at sea 

 is so great, that the perils of collisions are much 

 increased. But this, of course, is chiefly in the 

 more frequented routes, not in Ocean's lonelier 

 wastes. 



Definite rules are laid down for the avoidance 

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