420 OCEANOGRAPHY. 



the more indispensable it became to coordinate them, the more legend 

 and empiricism became transformed into science. 



Thus antiquity and the middle ages passed; thus these "sea rovers," 

 as Michelet calls them, advanced — Icelanders, Arabs, Dieppois, and 

 Basques. We can not admit that the sailors who then plowed the 

 Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the seas of China could remain indif- 

 ferent to the favorable or unfavorable circumstances whose advantages 

 or dangers were the more worthy of attention since their ships were 

 smaller and less capable of resistance than are the enormous vessels of 

 the present day propelled by steam. It is only through skill that the 

 weak are victorious. When the Norsemen about the year 1000 went 

 from Norway to Iceland, from Iceland to Greenland, and from Green- 

 land to that Vinland which five centuries later was to become America, 

 they left in the places which they there discovered names which showed 

 that natural phenomena had markedly attracted their attention; Stra- 

 umsoe, the island of currents; Straumsfjorde, the bay of currents; 

 Straumness, the cape of currents. 



Suddenly, about the middle of the fifteenth century, the world experi- 

 enced a great disturbance. The Renaissance began to make its influ- 

 ence felt throughout all Europe. There was a universal awakening of 

 curiosity, of science, of ambition, of life; that is to say, of desire of 

 enjoyment and of gold. There are such periods of fermentation in the 

 lives of individuals as in those of nations. Their primary wants were 

 satisfied, they desired more. The earth was divided among different 

 races, each race divided into peoples, the peoples into provinces, the 

 provinces into villages, hamlets, castles, all hostile to one another, war- 

 riug, fighting, massacring, and being massacred. The least painful 

 ro.ad for peaceful or for adventurous spirits, impatient with an ambition 

 difficult to satisfy in the old countries, was now the sea. All nations 

 launched out upon the waters. Some, Venetians, Genoese, sought 

 riches and found them, others sought riches and rule over vast coun- 

 tries. The sea gave glory and fortune, asking in exchange only bold- 

 ness, and valiant spirits of all nations, Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, 

 French, English, and a little later Dutch, embarked on vessels. Colum- 

 bus discovered America anew, a discovery that was not the result of 

 chance. Admitting that he had not received formal assurance of its 

 existence, he foresaw it, guided by his observations and oceanographic 

 information, marred and distorted, but nevertheless collected and trans- 

 mitted from mouth to mouth. At Porto Santo he had handled a piece 

 of carved wood thrown upon the shore by the currents and during for- 

 mer voyages he had remarked that the western shores of Norway, Scot- 

 land, and Ireland were strewn with pieces of wood of unknown species 

 brought by the waves from an unknown land. He, too, sought this 

 land and found it. 



When he reached it and, wishing to broaden the field of his discov- 

 eries, navigated that sea which was later to be called the Caribbean 



