Roosevelt High School - Bwana Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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ki'Ci5:l3 W MYHQ7 TRAVEL ON THE SEA VAST pageant of progress is the story of man's ventures and struggles on the sea. The great seas as we know them today were utterly unknown in the earliest times and were feared greatly by man. Boys loitering about the wharves of Sidon and Tyre caught snatches of song and story from the seamen of old Phoenicia. How brave these men were, we, today, can hardly realize. They were the first true sons of Neptune, traders who spread colonization and the alphabet. The Phoenicians, however, were extremely jealous of their knowledge of the sea and of navigation. If a strange sail hove in sight, the captain of a ship would try to outsail her, or failing in this, would await the night and silently change course. These first seafaring people were proud of their rather unseaworthy ships with their practically useless mast and square sail. Rather than surrender a ship, they would run it aground and burn it. The Greeks, in their mythology and in the writings of Homer, have left us vivid pictures of the sea. The realm of myth with the voyages of jason and Ulysses is better known than is the progress made by the Greek sailors. A Greek vessel was a handsome crafty a projecting prow, armoured with brass, taking the outlines of a beak, was used in rammingg half decks and a high poop sheltered the warriorsg while a huge rudder, or steering oar, guided the ship. It was about 260 B. C. that Rome became a great sea power. The Romans had kept to the inland sea and plied the blue waters of Mediterranean for centuries. It was at this time that the first great lighthouse was built, the Pharos of Alexandria, six hundred feet above the sea, lit by a bonfire kept burning on its top. I ln the meantime the Carthaginians flourished, and in the voyage of l-lanno made one of the great expeditions of the fifth century before our era. Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, and Genoa, were founded by these people. The cold, blue waters of the northern shore of Europe, of the Baltic and the North Sea, had their seamen. The Norsemen inhabited these bleak, craggy shores. They were a turbulent and piratical people who spent their lives in their long ships. These Norsemen spread out, settled in England and France, while others of their number, Lief Ericson and his crew, pushed across the sea to a new world. It was these hardy Vikings who led the way to the discovery of America. A few centuries later navigation began to grow and flourish still more. Marco Polo told his tales of the East and paved the way for the compass, which was first used by the Chinese. The astrolabe, an instrument for studying the stars, was invented: and studious geographers, piecing together the knowledge which came to them, made charts and maps of the known seas. Twenty-one

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Twenty BON VOYAGE!

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r. V -.s-.-.r-..-1,,,.7--- One hundred years later, I435, a boy was born in Genoa, Cristaforo Columbo, who was to start the rush of explorations across the sea. Columbus, as early as I474, made known to a learned cosmographer, Paul Toscanelli, his determination to seek a western route to lndia. It was not, however, until August 3, I492, that Columbus enlisted the aid of Spain and started on the greatest voyage in the history of commerce. It was on the night of October I2, I492, that Columbus with his staunch ships, Santa llflllflld. Plinfa, and Nl'na, sighted the shores of a new land. Now came the great age of the discoverers of lands across sea. The voyages of Vespucci along the coast of South America, and of Cabot along the mainland of North America took place. De Gama sailed around Africa to the east, while Ponce de Leon, heroic figure of romance, sailed in search of the Fountain of Youth. Balboa, a swashbuckling gallant, was the first to look upon the great Pacific Ocean. That prince of navigators, Magellan, sailed from Spain, and three years and twenty-seven days later his remaining ship, Victoria, docked at San Lucar. It landed without its great commander, who had been killed while at the Philippine lslands. Sir Francis Drake, the gentleman pirate, plundered the Spanish galleons. The Spanish Armada sent to humiliate England was defeated by Drake and his co-workers, Hawkins and Frobisher, thus giving England supremacy of the seas for their commerce. A decade after the landing of the Pilgrims from the Mayllower, America launched a ship at Salem and began its great career on the sea. ln the seventeenth century the seas were overrun with pirates, the flag of the Jolly Rogers flew boldly over the ships of such great pirates as Morgan and Kidd. Gradually larger and stouter sailing vessels were built and America struggled along on the seas as Europe was threshing out of the web of Napoleon. The war of commerce between the United States and England was fought in I8I2. The victories of Old Ifonslides and the United States gave the young land a feeling of confidence in its men on the seas. Packet ships started, whalemen and merchants sent their ships around the world, and passenger and fast freight ships began service across the Atlantic. The last of the great sailing ships, the clipper, with its tremendous spread of sail, flourished for a space. Steamboats were invented. ln ISI 7 Fulton's steam- boat, the Clermont, had paddled on the Hudson, and in ISI9 the S. S. Savannah sailed across the Atlantic. The Civil War brought ironclacl fighting ships in the Confederate AJGFFIIVTYGC, and the Union MOnz'tOr. The motive power at sea has been increased by the steam turbine, and now the oil burning Diesel engine is superseding steam in ships of average tonnage. Ships like the Leviathan have reached the limit of navigable size, the harbor depths limiting further increase in dimensions. The dimensions of the monster ship are: length, 907.6 feet: breadth, I00.3 feet: depth, 58.3 feet. The gross tonnage is over 55,000 tons. Ships have been perfected and studied until today we have ships of the most advanced type to carry on our commerce' EDWARD A. FISCHER Twenty-two