Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1912 — OCEAN LANES and THEIR ORIGIN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OCEAN LANES and THEIR ORIGIN

WHEN the survivors of the Titanic were picked up by the Carpathla, which had been summoned to their assistance by wireless less than six hours before, people who could see more than the appalling horror of the tragedy that had preceded the rescue, wondered and said: “But how fortunate that there was a ship near to pick them up. Suppose there hadn’t begn?” As a matter, of fact, nobody but a landlubber would have made such a remark. Any man who knew the sea and its ways would have been decidedly surprised had the Titanic’s survivors been compelled to wait longer than they did, situated as they were in the direct track of all vessels following what is known as the southern course across the Atlantic. Indeed, the testimony before the senate investigating committee disclosed that at least one steamer had been within nearer range of the distressed liner than the Carpathla, and, according to still other participants in the tragedy passed within five miles of the Titanic before she went down. Now, if you really are a landlubber and if, conversely, you know nothing about the laws and customs of the seas, you will, like the people referred to above, remark what a wonderful thing it was that so many ships could respond to the Titanic’s "C. Q. D." call, and dismiss the whole affair as a remarkable coincidence.. On the contrary, there was no coincidence about it —not any more so than If an automobilist on the Merrick road should break down on a lonely stretch out beyond Sayville, let us suppose, and should receive help from a brother of the gasolene fraternity within the next fifteen or twenty minutes. A Much Traveled Thoroughfare. No, the Titanic’s misfortune happened to her on one of the most frequently traveled thoroughfares of the many that sere the seven seas all over the globe. Outside of a few thickly frequented marine highways, like the British channel, or certain stretches of the Mediterranean, or our own Long, Island -sound, the Titanic could not have picked out a better place to sink in, with reasonablehope of rescue in a short time. Had it not been for a slip-up or misunderstanding which has yet to be explained, the nearest ship to the wrecked liner would have been alongside in ample time to take off all her passengers and crew. Nowadays, as, for that matter, from time out of mind, ships do not stray off certain well defined lanes unless driven to do so by unprecedentedly severe weather. But nowadays this holds true even more than formerly. In former times, the prevailing winds at different seasons, the set of various ocean currents, and similar natural phenomena, played considerable parts in the determination of the great trade routes, just as the location of wells and oases determines caravan routes across the African deserts. Ships naturally steered on courses on which they were most helped by the winds blowing at the different season pf the year, as well as by currents like the Gulf Stream. The lines used by the great transatlantic liners, however, are governed entirely by the ice-drift from the north. This ice-drift is a regular phenomenon, and clogs the seas as far south as the latitude of Cape Hatteras to a point about 40 degrees west longitude, not very* far from the Azores. That is to say, about half the seas between the American and European continents are subject to the peril of the iceberg. Tears ago skippers discovered this, and when transatlantic travel began to assume the proportions of an industry, the custom gradually grew up of setting regular routes of travel across the Atlantic, depending upon the presence oflce. North and South Lanes. ' The northern, or short lane, is followed late In the year, after all the Greenland floes and bergs have drifted down and disintegrated in the warmer southern waters; the southern or short course Is that followed the greater portion of the year, when the presence of toe is a constant menace to navigation. There is not a great deal of latitudinal difference between the two, and there is bo attempt to get wholly below the limit of the ice drift, for that would involve an impossible and really futile detour; but the southern course was always regarded

as absolutely safe, until the disaster to the Titanic. To find the beginnings of sea lanes of travel, you must go far back to the beginning of things, io the days when men first ventured on the sea and pushed timorously from cape to cape, anchoring by night and rarely sailing but of sight of land. The Phoenician mariners, who sent their galley® through the Pillars of Hercules and up to Ireland for cargoes of tin, were among the first to map out recognized routes for sea commerce, and one cannot resist a deep respect for their daring in thus exploring a way that their ancestors must have looked upon with wholly superstitious dread. In the ardent world, it is true, the ocean lanes were not many. Principal among them were the several courses from the Pillars of Hercules, either along the African coast, via Carthage, or 'the coasts of Gaul, Italy, and Greece, and so on, to the common base of all, the ports of Asia Minor, where the commerce of the ancient world met and was sifted and then redistributed on Its way to thousand smaller marts. Countless less important routes branched out from these, carried them on or projected into limited areas of water, surrounded by large populations which had a commerce of their own. In every case the paths of the trading galleys were Invariably the same. * The middle of the Mediterranean was probably seldom furrowed outside of the few tracks pursued by vessels traveling from one side of it to the other, say from Carthage or Alexandria to Athens or Rome. Men crept along the coasts or rowed uncertainly from island to island, unless they could not help themselves. And It is strangely true that nowadays, when the ocean lanes are so much greater in number, so incomparably far-flung in character, the same? general conditions hold good on the grander scale that has been assumed. The waters of the world—or that portion of it which is to any extent inhabited —are criss-crossed in every direction by innumerable paths followed by vessels, both sail and steam; but it is still possible to find wide areas in which a sail or a steamship’s smoke are not sighted for months on end. What vessel blown into the middle of the vast tract in the South Atlantic, roughly delimited by the routes followed by vessels from North American ports to Gibraltar, and by the course of ships from the South American ports bound for Europe, would have any logical hope of assistance?