THE YEAR 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten. Without getting into tho rumors that upt civilians in the aports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be said that professional amen were especially alarmed. Traders, shipowners, captains of vesls, skippers, and master mariners from Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at their heels the various national governments on the two continents, were all extremely disturbed by the business.
In esnce, over a period of time veral ships had encountered "an enormous thing" at a, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any whale.
The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks, agreed pretty cloly as to the structure of the object or creature in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it emed to be gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale previously classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor Lacépède, neither Professor Dumeril nor Professor de Quatrefages, would have accepted the existence of such a monster sight unen-- specifically, unen by their own scientific eyes.
Striking an average of obrvations taken at different times-- rejecting tho timid estimates that gave the object a length of 200 feet, and ignoring tho exaggerated views that saw it as a mile wide and three long--you could still asrt that this phenomenal creature greatly exceeded the dimensions of anything then known to ichthyologists, if it existed at all.
Now then, it did exist, this was an undeniable fact; and since the human mind dotes on objects of wonder, you can understand the worldwide excitement caud by this unearthly apparition. As for relegating it to the realm of fiction, that charge had to be dropped.
app排行榜In esnce, on July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, from the Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Co., encountered this moving mass five miles off the eastern shores of Australia.
Captain Baker at first thought he was in the prence of an unknown reef; he was even about to fix its exact position when two waterspouts shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air some 150 feet. So, unless this reef was subject to the intermittent eruptions of a geyr, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest dealings with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with air and steam.
Similar events were likewi obrved in Pacific as, on July 23 of the same year, by the Christoph
er Columbus from the West India & Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Conquently, this extraordinary cetacean could transfer itlf from one locality to another with startling swiftness, since within an interval of j
ust three days, the Governor Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had obrved it at two positions on the charts parated by a distance of more than 700 nautical leagues.
Fifteen days later and 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia from the Compagnie Nationale and the Shannon from the Royal Mail line, running on opposite tacks in that part of the Atlantic lying between the United States and Europe, respectively signaled each other that the monster had been sighted in latitude 42 degrees 15' north and longitude 60 degrees 35' west of the meridian of Greenwich. From their simultaneous obrvations, they were able to estimate the mammal's minimum length at more than 350 English feet;* this was becau both the Shannon and the Helvetia were of smaller dimensions, although each measured 100 meters stem to stern. Now then, the biggest whales, tho rorqual whales that frequent the waterways of the Aleutian Islands, have never exceeded a length of 56 meters--if they reach even that.
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*Author's Note: About 106 meters. An English foot is only 30.4 centimeters.
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One after another, reports arrived that would profoundly affect public opinion: new obrvations taken by the transatlantic liner Pereire, the Inman line's Etna running afoul of the monster, an official report drawn up by officers on the French frigate Normandy, dead-earnest reckonings obtained by the general staff of Commodore Fitz-James aboard the Lord Clyde. In lighthearted countries, people joked about this phenomenon, but such rious, practical countries as England, America, and Germany were deeply concerned.村居教学反思
In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang about it in the coffee hous, they ridiculed it in the newspapers, they dramatized it in the theaters. The tabloids found it a fine opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes. In tho newspapers short of copy, you saw the reappearance of every gigantic imaginary creature, from "Moby Dick," that dreadful white whale from the High Arctic regions, to the stupendous kraken who tentacles could entwine a 500-ton craft and drag it into the ocean depths. They even reprinted reports from ancient times: the views of Aristotle and Pliny accepting the existence of such monsters, then the Norwegian stories of Bishop Pontoppidan, the narratives of Paul Egede, and finally the reports of Captain Harrington-- who good faith is above suspicion--in which he claims he saw, while aboard the Castilian in 1857, one of tho enormous rpents that, until then, had frequented only the as of France's old extremist newspaper, The Constitutionalist.
An interminable debate then broke out between believers and skeptics in the scholarly societies and scientific journals. The "monster question" inflamed all minds. During this memorable campaign, journalists making a profession of science battled with tho making a profession of wit, spilling waves of ink and some of them even two or three drops of blood, since they went from a
rpents to the most offensive personal remarks.
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For six months the war esawed. With inexhaustible zest, the popular press took potshots at feature articles from the Geographic Institute of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., at discussions in The Indian Archipelago, in Cosmos published by Father Moigno, in Petermann's Mittheilungen,* and at scientific chronicles in the great French and foreign newspapers. When the monster's detractors cited a saying by the botanist Linnaeus that "nature doesn't make leaps," witty writers in the popular periodicals parodied it, maintaining in esnce that "nature doesn't make lunatics," and ordering their contemporaries never to give the lie to nature by believing in krakens, a rpents, "Moby Dicks," and other all-out efforts from drunken amen. Finally, in a much-feared satirical journal, an article by its most popular columnist finished off the monster for good, spurning it in the style of Hippolytus repulsing the amorous advances of his stepmother Phaedra, and giving the creature its quietus amid
a universal burst of laughter. Wit had defeated science.水牛
炸肉的做法*German: "Bulletin." Ed.
During the first months of the year 1867, the question emed to be buried, and it didn't em due for resurrection, when new facts were brought to the public's attention. But now it was no longer an issue of a scientific problem to be solved, but a quite real and rious danger to be avoided. The question took an entirely new turn. The monster again became an islet, rock, or reef, but a runaway reef, unfixed and elusive.
On March 5, 1867, the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co., lying during the night in latitude 27 degrees 30' and longitude 72 degrees 15', ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no charts of the waterways. Under the combined efforts of wind and 400-horpower steam, it was traveling at a speed of thirteen knots. Without the high quality of its hull, the Moravian would surely have split open from this collision and gone down together with tho 237 pasngers it was bringing back from Canada.
This accident happened around five o'clock in the morning, just as day was beginning to break. The officers on watch rushed to the craft's stern. They examined the ocean with the most scrupulous car
e. They saw nothing except a strong eddy breaking three cable lengths out, as if tho sheets of water had been violently churned. The site's exact bearings were taken, and the Moravian continued on cour apparently undamaged. Had it run afoul of an underwater rock or the wreckage of some enormous derelict ship? They were unable to say. But when they examined its undersides in the rvice yard, they discovered that part of its keel had been smashed.
This occurrence, extremely rious in itlf, might perhaps have been forgotten like so many others, if three weeks later it hadn't been reenacted under identical c
onditions. Only, thanks to the nationality of the ship victimized by this new ramming, and thanks to the reputation of the company to which this ship belonged, the event caud an immen uproar.
No one is unaware of the name of that famous English shipowner, Cunard. In 1840 this shrewd industrialist founded a postal rvice between Liverpool and Halifax, featuring three wooden ships with 400-horpower paddle wheels and a burden of 1,162 metric tons. Eight years later, the company's asts were incread by four 650-horpower ships at 1,820 metric tons, and in two more years, by two other vesls of still greater power and tonnage. In 1853 the Cunard Co., who mail-carrying charter had just been renewed, successively added to its asts the Arabia, the Persia,
the China, the Scotia, the Java, and the Russia, all ships of top speed and, after the Great Eastern, the biggest ever to plow the as. So in 1867 this company owned twelve ships, eight with paddle wheels and four with propellers.
If I give the highly condend details, it is so everyone can fully understand the importance of this maritime transportation company, known the world over for its shrewd management. No transoceanic navigational undertaking has been conducted with more ability, no business dealings have been crowned with greater success. In twenty-six years Cunard ships have made 2,000 Atlantic crossings without so much as a voyage canceled, a delay recorded, a man, a craft, or even a letter lost. Accordingly, despite strong competition from France, pasngers still choo the Cunard line in preference to all others, as can be en in a recent survey of official documents. Given this, no one will be astonished at the uproar provoked by this accident involving one of its finest steamers.
On April 13, 1867, with a smooth a and a moderate breeze, the Scotia lay in longitude 15 degrees 12' and latitude 45 degrees 37'. It was traveling at a speed of 13.43 knots under the thrust of its 1,000-horpower engines. Its paddle wheels were churning the a with perfect steadiness. It was then drawing 6.7 meters of water and displacing 6,624 cubic meters.
At 4:17 in the afternoon, during a high tea for pasngers gathered in the main lounge, a collision occurred, scarcely noticeable on the whole, affecting the Scotia's hull in that quarter a little astern of its port paddle wheel.
The Scotia hadn't run afoul of something, it had been fouled, and by a cutting or perforating instrument rather than a blunt one. This encounter emed so minor that nobody on board would have been disturbed by it, had it not been for the shouts of crewmen in the hold, who climbed on deck yelling:
"We're sinking! We're sinking!"这也是课堂
At first the pasngers were quite frightened, but Captain Anderson hastened to reassure them. In fact, there could be no immediate danger. Divided into ven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the Scotia could brave any leak with impunity.
Captain A
nderson immediately made his way into the hold. He discovered that the fifth compartment had been invaded by the a, and the speed of this invasion proved that the leak was considerable. Fortunatel
y this compartment didn't contain the boilers, becau their furnaces would have been abruptly extinguished.
Captain Anderson called an immediate halt, and one of his sailors dived down to asss the damage. Within moments they had located a hole two meters in width on the steamer's underside. Such a leak could not be patched, and with its paddle wheels half swamped, the Scotia had no choice but to continue its voyage. By then it lay 300 miles from Cape Clear, and after three days of delay that filled Liverpool with acute anxiety, it entered the company docks.
The engineers then proceeded to inspect the Scotia, which had been put in dry dock. They couldn't believe their eyes. Two and a half meters below its waterline, there gaped a symmetrical gash in the shape of an isosceles triangle. This breach in the sheet iron was so perfectly formed, no punch could have done a cleaner job of it. Conquently, it must have been produced by a perforating tool of uncommon toughness-- plus, after being launched with prodigious power and then piercing four centimeters of sheet iron, this tool had needed to withdraw itlf by a backward motion truly inexplicable.
This was the last straw, and it resulted in arousing public passions all over again. Indeed, from this m
oment on, any maritime casualty without an established cau was charged to the monster's account. This outrageous animal had to shoulder responsibility for all derelict vesls, who numbers are unfortunately considerable, since out of tho 3,000 ships who loss are recorded annually at the marine insurance bureau, the figure for steam or sailing ships suppodly lost with all hands, in the abnce of any news, amounts to at least 200!
Now then, justly or unjustly, it was the "monster" who stood accud of their disappearance; and since, thanks to it, travel between the various continents had become more and more dangerous, the public spoke up and demanded straight out that, at all cost, the as be purged of this fearsome cetacean.
