TIDES AND OCEANIC HIGHWAYS. 369 



endangering vessels by suction, but rather a tumultuous movement of the water, which 

 circulates in .several quick eddies, varying with the force and direction of the winds and 

 currents. When the wind and the current oppose each other, the Kalofaro becomes a 

 scene of extensive and violent agitation, and will wheel round even ships of war 

 upon its surface ; but there is no appearance of an absorbing gulf answering to the 

 ancient imagination, though smaller vessels are exposed to the peril of being driven 

 ashore, or destroyed by the waves beating over them. In order to avoid the danger 

 arising from Charybdis, the mariners of former times went as near as possible to the 

 coast of Calabria, and sometimes went too near, provoking the dangers arising from 

 Scylla ; and hence the proverb still applied to those who, in attempting to escape one 

 evil, encounter another : 



Incidat in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim. 

 " Who flies Charybdis. upon Scylla strikes." 



Brydone, after referring to the accounts given of it by the classical writers, remarks : 

 " It certainly is not now so formidable, and very probably the violent motion, continued 

 for so many ages, has by degrees worn smooth the rugged rocks and jutting shelves that 

 may have intercepted and confined the waters. The breadth of the straits, too, in this 

 place, I make no doubt, is considerably enlarged. Indeed, from the nature of things, it 

 must be so ; the perpetual friction occasioned by the current must wear away the bank 

 on each side, and enlarge the bed of the water." 



Of all the oceanic movements exhibited in the form of waves, tides, and currents, of 

 which a summary notice has been given, the latter are the most influential in affecting the 

 displacement of its waters. The tides alternately elevate and let down the surface, rather 

 than produce an actual stream, except along shore, and in confined channels ; for when 

 we speak of the motion of a tide-wave, and of its rate of advance, we do not mean a 

 shifting of the water from place to place, but the progressive elevation of its surface 

 stratum. The influence of the winds in creating waves is very circumscribed in forcing 

 the sea to change its situation, except where they are strong and permanent ; and it is 

 the upper stratum that they chiefly affect. It may here be mentioned that during a 

 recent circumnavigation of the globe by the French ship Venus, the highest wave that 

 struck her on the voyage was 75 metres, or 23 feet ; and the longest wave, met with to 

 the south of New Holland, was three times the length of the frigate, 150 metres, or 492 

 feet. Currents, on the contrary, involve extensive areas of the ocean ; extend in many 

 instances to the bottom of the sea, and transfer its waters from one hemisphere to another 

 from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and to the Pacific again, in perpetual revolution from 

 the congelation of polar regions to the heat of the equatorial. Owing to the joint influence 

 of winds, tides, and currents, there is no part of the ocean, for any long interval, in a 

 state of rest an obviously benign arrangement of Providence ; for if it became for any 

 length of time a vast stagnant pool, its waters, charged with an immense amount of 

 decomposing animal and vegetable matter, notwithstanding their saltness, would soon 

 become foetid, would give off noxious exhalations, infect the whole atmosphere, and 

 reduce the world to an uninhabitable desert. It has been wisely ordained, therefore, that 

 the physical condition of this enormous mass of water should answer to the apostrophe 



" Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll ! " 



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