OCEAN STEAM FERRY. 25 



made the Atlantic Ocean a ferry-transit, and the electric tele- 

 graph has now made its three thousand miles of salt water but 

 as one link in that girdle which Shakspeare foresaw and which 

 Puck promised to perform. The cable is complete and in 

 working-order from New Orleans to Sebastopol. 



Having thus rapidly described what the ocean once was in 

 man's estimation, and having cursorily traced the steps by 

 which it has taken its place in the world's economy, it remains 

 for us to say what the ocean now is, and what place it now 

 holds. It is the peaceful Highway of Nations, — a highway with- 

 out tax or toll. Were the noble idea of the late Secretary Marcy 

 adopted by all nations, private property upon the sea would bo 

 sacred even in time of war. If the distances be considered, 

 the sea is the safest and most commodious route from spot to 

 spot, whether for merchandise or man. It has given up il;s 

 secrets, with perhaps the single exception of its depth, and, like 

 the lightning and the thunderbolt, has submitted to the yoke. 

 Though still sublime in its immensity and its power, it has lost 

 those features of character which once made it mysterious and 

 fantastic, and has become the sober and humdrum pathway of 

 traffic. Mail-routes are as distinctly marked upon its surface as 

 the equator, or the meridian of Greenwich: steamships leave 

 their docks punctually at the stroke of noon. The monsters 

 that plough its waters have been hunted by man till the race is 

 well nigh exhausted ; for the leviathan which frightened the 

 ancients is the whale which has illuminated the moderns. The 

 chant of the sirens is hushed, and in its place are heard the 

 clatter of rushing paddle-wheels, the fog-whistle on the banks, the 

 song of the forecastle, the yo-ho of sailors toiling at the ropes, 

 the salute in mid-ocean, — sometimes — alas ! — the minute-gun at 

 sea. The romance and fable that once had here their chosen 

 home, have fled to the caves and taken refuge amid the grottos ; 

 and the legends that were lately told of the ocean would now 

 be out of place even in a graveyard or a haunted house. 



