Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
I looked about me, and found that all we had with us was the boat's painter, a piece of rope some seven or eight fathoms long, which might serve as a sounding-line, if only we had a sinker of some sort, which, unhappily, we had not.
One day Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, called out to Columbus that he had seen birds flying westwards and expected to sight land before night. They therefore sailed cautiously lest they should run aground, but all their apprehension ceased when a sounding-line two hundred fathoms long, lowered through the floating sea-wrack, failed to reach the bottom.
Such, then, was the opinion the registrar gave, if, indeed, he spoke the real truth; proving, in my opinion, that there are strong whirlpools and an eddy here, so that the water beating against the rocks, a sounding-line, when let down, cannot reach the bottom. I was unable to learn anything more from any one else.
The vessel was now again hove-to, and, a hasty breakfast having been despatched, the gig was lowered and manned; and Ned, accompanied by Rogers, and supplied with a sounding-line and compass, was despatched in her to make a thorough examination of the place.
They were apparently in the same position as before, but his sounding-line showed that the water was slightly falling. He came back and imparted the fact with a certain confidence born of her previous praise of his knowledge. To his surprise she only laughed and said lazily, "We'll be all right, and you'll be free, in about two hours."
Again Benson played see-saw with his sounding-line over the boat's gunwale. "If my lead isn't hitting the 'Farnum," declared the young skipper, positively, "then it's the 'Farnum's' ghost. Hold steady, now, Hal." Immediately afterward, Benson caused the lead fairly to dance a jig on whatever it touched at bottom. "What's the good of that, anyway?" demanded Jacob Farnum.
I have now measured the lake's centre pretty satisfactorily by triangulation, by compass in connection with astronomical observation, and twice by dead reckoning. It is twenty-six miles broad at the place of crossing, which is its narrowest central part. But, alas! that I should have omitted to bring a sounding-line with me, and not have ascertained that highly interesting feature its depth.
I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother.
As the gig advanced beyond the centre of the first basin, the water was found to shoal gradually, until exactly midway between the two bluffs, a depth of four and a half fathoms only was given by the sounding-line.
Perhaps the depths might disclose what the surface failed to reveal, and Count Timascheff, anxious that Servadac should have every facility afforded him for solving his doubts, called for the sounding-line. Forthwith, the lead was greased and lowered.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking