28 THE SEA. 



CHAPTER II. 



MEN OF PEACE. 



Naval Life in Perxo Times A Grand Exploring Voyage-The Cruise of the Challenger Its Work Deep-sea Sounding* 

 Five Miles Down Apparatus Employed Ocean Treasures A Gigantic Sea-monsterTristan d'Acunha A Discovery 

 Interesting to the Discovered The Two Crusoes The Inaccessible Island Solitary Life The Sea-cart Swimming 

 Pigs Rescxied at Last The Real Crusoe Island to Let Down South The Land of Desolation Kerguelen The 

 Sealers' Dreary Life In the Antarctic Among the Icebergs. 



No form of life presents greater contrasts than that of the sailor. Storm and calm alternate ; 

 to-day in the thick of the fight battling man or the elements to-morrow we find him 

 tranquilly pursuing some peaceful scheme of discovery or exploration, or calmly cruising from 

 one station to another, protecting by moral influence alone the interests of his country. His 

 deeds may be none the less heroic because his conquests are peaceful, and because Neptune 

 rather than Mars is challenged to cede his treasures. Anson, Cook, and Vancouver, Parry, 

 Franklin, M'Clintock, and M'Clure, among a host of others, stand worthily by the side of 

 our fighting sailors, because made of the same stuff. Let us also, then, for a time, leave 

 behind the smoke and din, the glories and horrors of war, and cool our fevered imagi- 

 nations by descending, in spirit at least, to the depths of the great sea. The records 

 of the famous voyage of the Challenger* will afford a capital opportunity of contrasting 

 the deeds of the men of peace with those of men of war. 



We may commence by saying that no such voyage has in truth ever been undertaken 

 before. f Nearly 70,000 miles of the earth's watery surface were traversed, and the Atlantic 

 and Pacific crossed and recrossed several times. It was a veritable voyage en zigzag. Apart 

 from ordinary soundings innumerable, 374 deep-sea soundings, when the progress of the 

 vessel had to be stopped, and which occupied an hour or two apiece, were made, and at least 

 two-thirds as many successful dredgings and trawlings. The greatest depth of ocean readied 

 was 4,575 fathoms (27,450 feet), or over five miles. This was in the Pacific, about 1,400 miles 

 S.E. of Japan. We all know that this ocean derives its name from its generally calmer 

 weather and less tempestuous seas ; and the researches of the officers of the Challenger, 

 and of the United States vessel Ttiscarora, show that the bottom slopes to its greatest depths 

 very evenly and gradually, little broken by submarine mountain ranges, except off volcanic 

 islands and coasts like those of the Hawaiian (Sandwich) Islands. Off the latter there are 

 mountains in the sea ranging to as high as ] 2,000 feet. The general evenness of the bottom 

 helps to account for the long, sweeping waves of the Pacific, so distinguishable from the short, 



* The full official account has not yet been issued. The brief narrative presented here is derived principally from 

 the lively and interesting series of letters from the pen of Lord George Campbell; from "The Cruise of H.M.S. 

 Challenger," by W. J. J. Spry, E.N., one of the engineers of the vessel; and the Xautical and other scientific and 

 technical magazines. 



t The Austrian frigate Novara made, in 1857-8-9, a voyage round "and about " the world of 51,686 miles. As it 

 was a sailing vessel, no reliable results could be expected from their deep-sea soundings, and, in fact, on the only two 

 occasions when they attempted anything very deep, their lines broke. 



