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There do indeed flow hourly, from an ever-welling press, rivers of words; there are indeed shoaling us up on all sides a throng of well-bound volumes novels, histories, poems, plays, memoirs, and so forth to all appearance, books: but if by "books" be intended originality of matter, independent arguments, water turned wine, by the miracle of right-thinking, and not a mere re-decantering of dregs from other vessels these many masqueraded forms, these multiplied images of little-varied likenesses, these Protean herds, will not stay to be counted, nor abide judgment, nor brook scrutiny, but will merge and melt by thousands into the one, or the two, real, original, sterling books.
When half a mile from the shore, we found the bottom rapidly shoaling, the least depth being 9 1/2 fathoms. Several small bergs were ashore hereabouts, but the swell breaking on the beach plainly told us that a landing was out of the question.
Already there were but six and a-half fathoms of water, rapidly shoaling under their keels, and the pilots told Medina that all were irretrievably lost, for the freshening north-welter was driving them steadily upon the banks. The English, easily escaping the danger, hauled their wind, and paused to see the ruin of the proud Armada accomplished before their eyes.
Towards the end of the month I had our store of seal meat and blubber brought aboard. The depth as recorded by a sounding on the last day of March was 256 fathoms. The continuous shoaling from 606 fathoms in a drift of 39 miles N. 26° W. in thirty days was interesting.
From this place, indeed, where the land gradually became much lower in advancing to the southward, the whole nature of the soundings entirely altered, the water gradually shoaling in approaching the beach, so that the ships could scarcely come nearer, in most parts, than a quarter of a mile.
The trees are leafless now; and the whole flat is lightly washed with the most delicate and spare tints, the pasture tinted with the yellowing bent, the pale stubble, the rich plough-land, all blending into a subdued colour; and then, as the day declines and the plain is rimmed with a frosty mist, the smouldering glow of the orange sunset begins to burn clear on the horizon, the grey laminated clouds becoming ridged with gold and purple, till the whole fades, like a shoaling sea, into the purest green, while the cloud-banks grow black and ominous, and far-off lights twinkle like stars in solitary farms.
Said Dollinger, the pilot man, As on the vessel flew, "Fear not, but trust in Dollinger, And he will fetch you through." A panic struck the bravest hearts, The boldest cheek turned pale; For plain to all, this shoaling said A leak had burst the ditch's bed! And, straight as bolt from crossbow sped, Our ship swept on, with shoaling lead, Before the fearful gale! "Sever the tow-line!
While, therefore, at one point the sea is advancing landward, and requiring great effort to prevent the undermining and washing away of the dikes, it is shoaling at another by its own deposits, and exposing, at low water, a gradually widening belt of sands and ooze. The coast-lands selected for diking-in are always at points where the sea is depositing productive soil.
The beavers, unmolested, haunt the ledges; along their precipitous ways the deer come down to drink; on bright days the rainbow hovers about the falls; on bright nights they glimmer in the moon; but never again have they glowed with the shoaling orange light of the furnace, intensifying to the deep tawny tints of its hot heart, like the rich glamours of some great topaz.
Where the sea is deep, the effect of this wave on the bottom may be but slight; but as the undulation attains shallower water, and in proportion to the shoaling, the front of the surge is retarded in its advance by the friction of the bottom, while the rear part, being in deeper water, crowds upon the advancing line.
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