14 



THE OPAL SEA 



Extent of 

 the sea. 



The vast 

 Pacific. 



habited islands ! How often he must have been 

 harrowed by the thought that perhaps the the- 

 ories were wrong, that possibly the world was 

 not round but an unending reach of water upon 

 which he had gone too far ever to return ! To 

 be lost on the land, in forest or on mountain, is 

 discouraging enough ; but to be lost on the Pa- 

 cific, in 1530 — that is quite another affair. 



Eratosthenes was right; the earth was a 

 globe. But what philosopher ever imagined 

 that it was so large ! Homer was right when 

 he sang of the " mighty flood," but he was 

 thinking of the insignificant Mediterranean. 

 What poet had imagination enough to picture 

 the vastness of the Pacific ! Many had surmised 

 the truth but none had realized its extent. 

 When the caravels of Columbus had sailed and 

 returned the wise ones of the Kenaissance were 

 astonished by the story brought home. It 

 seemed impossible that there could be so much 

 water. And still the girth of the seas was 

 uncomprehended. It was only when Ma- 

 gellan's Santa Vittoria had circumnavigated 

 the globe and dropped anchor in the bay of San 

 Lucar that a realization of the world of water 

 began to dawn. The Atlantic was astonishing 

 enough in all conscience; but the Pacific was 

 overwhelming and dumbfounding. 



