8o SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Des 



seems deprived of life, and it is under the impression of this 

 indescribable sentiment of melancholy that man finds himself 

 alone in the presence of God and the immensity ! " MY. 



A Type of Desolation. 



Between Humboldt's current and the great equatorial flow 

 there is an area marked as the "desolate region." It was 

 observed that this part of the ocean was rarely visited by the 

 whale, either sperm or right. Why it did not appear, but 

 observations asserted the fact. Formerly this part of the ocean 

 was seldom whitened by the sails of a ship, or enlivened by the 

 presence of man. Neither the industrial pursuits of the sea nor 

 the highways of commerce called him into it. Now and then 

 a roving cruiser or an enterprising whaleman passed that way ; 

 but to all else it was an unfrequented part of the ocean, and so 

 remained until the gold-fields of Australia and the guano islands 

 of Peru made it a thoroughfare. All vessels bound from 

 Australia to South America now pass through it, and in the 

 journals of some of them it is described as a region almost void 

 of the signs of life in both' sea and air. In the South Pacific 

 Ocean especially, where there is such a wide expanse of water, 

 sea-birds often exhibit a companionship with a vessel, and will 

 follow and keep company with it through storm and calm for 

 weeks together. Even those kinds as the albatross and Cape 

 pigeon, that delight in the stormy regions of Cape Horn and in 

 the inhospitable climates of the Antarctic regions, not unfre- 

 quently accompany vessels into the perpetual summer of the 

 tropics. The sea-birds that join the ship as she clears Australia 

 will, it is said, follow her to this region, and then disappear. 

 Even the chirp of the stormy petrel ceases to be heard here, 

 and the sea itself is said to be singularly barren "of moving 

 creatures that have life." This is a type of desolation. It 

 represents that portion of the life of an unhappy man which by 

 age or circumstances is detached from society, and remains in 

 desolation. Now and then pilgrims, like ships of passage, may 

 cross the man's path, but his own sense of desolation remains 

 the same. No cheerful thoughts ever flit with bird-like beauty 

 across the horizon of his mind ; and the depths of his soul are 

 solitary with sorrow. T. 



