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Dense clouds and a sleety rain settled over the sea, washing out every outline, as the St. Peter began her westward course. But what baffled both Bering and the officers was the fact that the coast trended, not north, but south. They were coasting that long peninsula of Alaska that projects an arm for a thousand miles southwestward into the Pacific. The roar of the rollers came from the reefs.
The remaining S.E. portions do not appear in any published chart to possess reefs of any kind; and the Rev. W. Ellis, whose means of information regarding this side of Madagascar have been extensive, informs me he believes there are none. Proceeding from the northern part, the coast appears, for a considerable space, without reefs.
Gascoyne still stood on the fore part of the ship as she neared this spot, which was so beset with reefs and rocks that her escape seemed miraculous. "I think we are near enough for the work that we have to do," suggested Montague, in some anxiety. "Just about it, Mr. Montague," said Gascoyne, as he turned towards the helm and shouted, "Port your helm."
The story of his efforts, and many seeming failures and disappointments, and his final success, are most interesting to all readers. The tale is written in Mr. Alger's most fascinating style. The Castaways; or, On the Florida Reefs. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This tale smacks of the salt sea.
Lord Elgin sailed for Jamaica in the middle of April 1842. The West Indian steamers at that time held their rendezvous for the collection and distribution of the mails not, as now, at St. Thomas, but at a little island called Turk's Island, a mere sandbank, hedged with coral reefs.
The violent and disturbing currents, the terrible surf of the beaches, the cyclones of the Guinea coast, the trade-winds, which were always head-winds to the mariners returning from the south- west, the uncharted reefs and bars, all favored a school of seamanship which trained the Portuguese and Italian sailors to meet far worse difficulties than those likely to confront them in the later and more distant voyages to the westward.
Everybody was more or less desirous to have this point cleared up. He looked the questioner squarely in the face. "In some parts of the world," he said, "there are sunken reefs, unknown, uncharted, on which many a vessel has been lost without any contributory fault on the part of her officers?" "Undoubtedly."
Five minutes sufficed us to accomplish the passage through the reef, when we found ourselves gliding gently forward upon the placid surface of the lagoon, which formed a magnificent crescent-shaped, natural harbour, some ten miles long by about two and a half miles wide at its widest part, tapering away to nothing at its northern and southern extremities, where the barrier and fringing reefs united.
If his view be correct, it is clear that neither atolls, nor encircling reefs, should be found in those portions of the ocean in which we have reason to believe, on independent grounds, that the sea-bottom has long been either stationary, or slowly rising.
Wednesday, December 24th. In the forenoon went out of the harbour, and examined the entrances and anchorage. The dangers are all visible, and it is only necessary to give a berth to the reefs that make off from the points. There is an inner reef making off to the westward from the northern island; but it, like the other, is visible, and there is no danger whatever in approaching it.
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