THE SARGASSO SEA

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1928, Page 4

THE SARGASSO SEA

It is difficult in these days to understand the terror which the Sargasso Sea possessed for flic early marine!s of the deep waters. To the Latin races it was the Mare Teuebrosum and the Mare Mortuuin, and it was perhaps the greatest achievement of Columbus that he was able to combat the superstitious fears which troubled the minds of his crew. In the waters of the Sargasso Sea, so they had been taught, lived terrible monsters which pursued .ships, and with socket* arms drew ships and sailors down; it was the home of the Kraken. sea monsters so large that unsuspecting mariners mistook them lor islands, and at* its western limit the waters plunged violently down to blackness. We are told that Columbus experienced unusual calms and breezes right through the Sargasso, and his crew were of the opinion that their deliverance was entirely due to the numerous fasting days and devout masses offered by them on the* voyage.

Tt is difficult to account for the legend that this great ocean track was the home of missing ships. Even down to the present day old sailormen will affirm that all the wrecks and derelicts of the Atlantic are gathered there drifting around in desolate multitudes amidst the entangling weed. In the late ’9o’s the writer was shipmate with a wizened old shellback who had been there. He had seen hireme.s and galleons. clippers and galleried linc-of-battleships, brigs and rusty steamers riding there on the smooth and lonely waters. TTc drew an awful picture of ships all entangled in the weed which floats in great masses there, and his narrow escape from the enormous tentacles of the giant squids which attempted to .sink his ship made a

, convincing story. The youthful minds I of his listeners could not believe that , he was a romantic old humbug; we ! had heard so much about the terrors of this mysterious sea that we were ready to believe anything. It is possible that the ancient Phoenicians may have known of this part of the Atlantic, for their coins have been discovered at the Azores, and it is believed that, in the past, Hie Sargasso Sea was not only much greater in extent than at present, but was found much more to the eastward than in these clays. If they, or other marines did, it- might well appear to them that the weeds were rooted in slime and that progress would be impossible. So perhaps originated the idea that this scarcely submerged land was the place where j Atantie was overwhemed by the ocean. People will remember Plato’s words: “By extraordinary earthquakes ana , deluges, bringing destruction in a ; ingle day and night . . . the Atlan- , tic Island was plunged beneath the sea, and concealed from view; therefore that sea is, at present, neither , passable nor to be traced out. being flocked up with a great depth of mud ! , by the sunken island.” j And so the legend grew that, be- ] rentli the weeds and slime, lay the temples and palaces, the harbours and j docks and canals, and all the natural v ealth—“fair and wondrous in infill- ;] Be abundance”—of the vanished island. It is a legend that has persist- p ed for centuries. Oceanographers tell s us that lofty mountain ranges rear a their peaks towards the surface of the a

Atlantic as they may have once raised them towards and above the clouds; itis improbale, though not impossible, I that any upheaval will ever reveal to 11s the tumbled debris of the submerged Atlantic. Yet the Sargasso Sea, legendary as it is. and oft-times the subject for tho highly-coloured methods of the sensational novelist, has a reality which properly considered, is every bit ns thrilling as romance. No Phoenician galleys are to he found there, no relics of vanished races; it is. in truth, merely a quiet spot, the centre ot a vaguely-defined circle lormcd by the wheeling of great currents. Ihe voyager over its wastes will find no more debris than is common to any other part of the ocean ; and- if lie notices the weed from the high deck of a Dig steamer, it will not suggest fears of a ship made immobile. But if he were to see the weed masses from the low level of one of the old-time caravels, it would seem denser; and from a ship’s boat the Sargasso Sea presents the appearance of a flooded moor, with I its vegetation just awash. Between j tho patches of weed wind lanes of water, which look exactly like rivers, { hut the banks offer no resistance to tho bows of a vessel; in no place is it thick enough to impede the progress of a vawl.

The Sargasso weed is carried by ocean currents from the hanks of the Caribbean Sen through the Straits of Florida, out into the Gulf Stream. The most plentiful «.f the various seaweed, floating there assumes a globular form, and 1 hereby justifies the name nf the sea. which is derived from tho Portuguese word ‘Varga.’’ a kind of grape. At- times the oi.van is Vine huge brown mass of gull weed, and to a stranger voyaging amidst it the natural assumption would he that marine life would he unusually plentiful, hut the contrary appears to lie tho case. Darwin even went so far to say that “there was more variety of life in and about one leaf of kelp growing along the shores of Tiorra del Euego than in the whole Sargasso Sea.” The life there is, nevertheless, fascinating and grotesque. It. ranges from rare abysmal fishes of large, size to the tinv forms that live on the weed itself and are carried with it as it floats. Alany of tile old-lime sailing till ip ('ommaaidors were enthusiastic naturalists, and much of our knowledge of life in this part of the ocean was classified liv them. Captain Henderson, of file wool clipper Alermerus, found a unique creature clinging to a hunch of weed, a gastropod of a bright purple hue. and so iragilc that it tiny buld'le of air keeps it afloat. Another creature mentioned by Captain line. of the Loch Trool, is described a- a lizard-like fish and has wings on its back extending the whole length of its body, with strange variations in shape, and a number of excrescences with tan-like extremities” it is, he says, perhaps the most grotesque creature of its kind in tho world. This denizen of the deep was preserved in snirib-, brought to England by Captain Rue. anil it caused endless argument among the learned professors as to its classification.

An expedition ha- j11 >-1 returned from a four months’ exploration voyage in the Sargasso Sea. and much has been added to our knowledge of sea life by the efforts of the naturalistss of the exited it ion. In one part of the sea. over three miles deep, a creature was caught which emitted a phosphorescent light, so bright that a newspaper could he read tit a distance ot lour feet. 'Tiny creatures were captured that may lie animal or vegetable, or both at once, and t-licv have

given zoologists the puzzle of their lives to define what they are. Alimitc crabs and shrimp-like fishes, some with luminous eyes and spots glowing like jewels, were classified as new species. One important fact was established—the marine life of the Sargasso Sea Is absolutely unlike that of tinv other part of the deep oceans. No drifting ships or floating islands were discovered. and thus an old-time legend is dispelled.