Atlantic (53 page)

White, David Fairbank.
Bitter Ocean: The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1945
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Williamson, Kenneth.
The Atlantic Islands: A Study of the Faeroe Life and Scene
. London: Collins, 1948.

A Glossary of Possibly Unfamiliar Terms

Aiguille
A needlelike spire of rock; usually applied to mountains or undersea ranges.

Benthic
Describes creatures and plants that live at the bottom of the sea.

Berber
Refers to the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile; most Moroccans are Arab-Berber. Hence: the Barbary Coast.

Bilge
The broadest internal part of the bottom of a ship, where all the leakage and swill collect.

Bollard
A stout post on a wharf, to which a ship may be tied. See also
hawser.

Bouillon
A strong meat broth, often served hot to passengers on the boat deck of a ship on passage through cold waters.

Bridgewing
The extended and usually open part of a ship’s bridge, where officers may view the entire length of the vessel, and from which dockside commands may be given.

Brig
A square-rigged sailing vessel, usually with two masts.

Cant
To steer a slow-moving ship into a dock, usually at journey’s end.

Careen
To turn a beached ship over onto its side so that its hull may be cleaned or repaired.

Castile
One of the ancient monarchies, in the central north of the Iberian peninsula, that eventually made up the Kingdom of Spain.

Cog
A small sailing boat, usually with a single mast, often used for short-distance Baltic trading.

Compline
The final evening service held in a religious house.

Cordillera
A chain of mountains; most commonly applied to the Andes and the Rocky Mountains.

Coriolis force
Named after a nineteenth-century French mathematician, this force is the effect the earth’s rotation has on winds and ocean currents.

Curragh
A small and simply built Irish boat, originally made of reeds and skins, still in use today in parts of rural Ireland.

Cwm
The Welsh word for a valley or depression on a hillside. The Western Cwm on the flanks of Mt. Everest is the best-known example outside Wales.

Cyanobacteria
Blue-green algae, named for their dominant color, that derive their energy from photosynthesis.

Dory
A small rowing boat, with high prows and stern and little freeboard, much used by nineteenth-century American whalers.

Einkorn wheat
A type of wild wheat considered to have been the first crop grown in an organized fashion by early agriculturists in the Fertile Crescent.

Ell
An obsolete measure of length, based on the average forearm; in England it is about forty-five inches.

Erg
A Berber word for the great areas of sand dunes found in the central Sahara (a word which itself means desert in Berber).

Flense
To remove the skin and blubber from a dead whale.

Forepeak
The small and oddly angled internal space at the very tip of a boat; usually where the paint is stored, or, in naval vessels, the laundrymen.

Freeboard
The height from the waterline to the lowest part of a ship’s deck. A vessel with little freeboard risks being swamped.

Fynbos
An aggregation of very rich vegetation—more than six thousand endemic species—that grows in a small area of South Africa’s Western Cape Province that has been blessed with a Mediterranean climate.

Gesso
A material, made from gypsum or plaster of paris, used to prepare a surface, such as a wall or a canvas, for painting.

Godown
A Malay word for a warehouse, now commonly employed across India and South Asia.

Growler
A half-hidden small iceberg, an often lethal menace to shipping.

Gyre
In this context, a spinning pattern of wind, current, or climate.

Hammada
A Saharan desert area where the wind has blown away the sand, leaving only rocks and scrub.

Hard
A sloping surface of stone or concrete leading down into the water, up which boats may be hauled, down which they may be launched, or on which they may be cleaned or repaired.

Harmattan
A dry easterly wind, freighted with red desert dust, that blows in the winter months across western Africa.

Hawser
A thick and very strong rope, made either of hemp or steel cable, used to secure ships to the quayside.

Henge
A medieval formation, usually circular, of stones surrounding ceremonial structures or burial chambers. Stonehenge, in southern England, is the best-known example.

Hove-to
Of a ship at sea: intentionally stopped, temporarily drifting.

Kelp
Thick, floating seaweed, often strong enough to allow small craft to tie up alongside.

Knot
A unit of speed equivalent to one nautical mile per hour, employed to describe the velocities of ships and some kinds of aircraft.

Krill
A small ocean-borne, shrimplike crustacean, much favored as the constant diet of baleen whales.

Lee shore
A coastline toward which the wind generally blows. A lee shore can be extremely dangerous for a nearby sailing vessel, especially if the craft becomes embayed and unable to escape being blown onto land.

Letterpress
A type of printing, nowadays of little commercial importance, in which paper is briefly pressed by machinery against inked type, leaving both the ink and a discernible impression on the paper’s surface.

Levant
The countries of the eastern Mediterranean, so named because to seaborne mariners the sun appears to rise—become
lévant
, in French—from within them.

Long sea
Of sea voyages, those which pass between continents, and during which the vessel is seldom in sight of land, except at the beginning and end of passage.

Longphort
An Irish term that describes a sheltered and fortified base from which Viking invaders could conduct commerce and launch further raids.

Loxodrome
Another name for the rhumb line, along which some sailors once made their journeys, keeping at all times at a constant angle to the lines of longitude that they crossed.

Lutefisk
A dish, popular in Norway but little loved elsewhere, made from whitefish soaked for some days in caustic soda. The gelatinous whitefish is then eaten with flat bread and meatballs.

Machair
Strips of low-lying grassland, often on a shallow bed of shell sand, found especially along the coastlines of western Scotland.

Main
The mainland coast of the Caribbean, generally taken to refer to the Spanish possessions from which the galleon trade was first conducted.

Majuscule
A large form of written or printed script, whether in capital or uncial (rounded) form.

Marlinspike
A sharp metal spike whose official purpose was to pry apart the strands of a rope for splicing. An essential item in a sailor’s kitbag, it had innumerable other uses, from oyster opener to weapon.

Medina
The walled section—and thus usually the non-European section—of a North African town.

Minuscule
A small kind of cursive script, often used by monks in the writing of lengthy documents.

Nunatak
The Inuit word for an isolated mountain rising through an ice cap or beside a glacier.

Pelagic
Unlike
littoral
, which refers to the seashore, and
benthic
, which refers to the sea bottom,
pelagic
pertains to the open ocean, far from land and close to the surface.

Pemmican
A hard and initially unpalatable cake of compressed meat and grease used at first by Native Americans (the word is Cree), but later by travelers generally, for emergency rations.

Pinnace
A small, often two-masted sailing vessel customarily employed to attend a much larger vessel and serve its needs in port or on short voyages.

Pipal
A kind of fig tree,
Ficus religiosa
, known to many as the Bo-tree, found in the Indian subcontinent and sacred to Hindus and Buddhists in equal measure. It often serves as the meeting place in an Indian village.

Puncheon
A large barrel or cask used for the transport of fermenting wine or spirits.

Quahog
A kind of hard-shelled clam found in North America, only on the Atlantic coasts.

Quinquereme
A powerful Roman galley with three banks of oars. The two uppermost are each pulled by two men, and the one below pulled by one. Thus each set of oars is rowed by a total of five men—hence the Latin name.

Rhumb line
An imaginary line, often sailed along by the navigationally unsophisticated, which intersects lines of longitude at a constant angle.

Riprap
Stones or other heavy material dumped into the sea to provide a strong foundation for a wharf or for a mole that provides shelter to a harbor.

Sal volatile
A solution of the chemical ammonium carbonate, much used by delicate ladies of a certain age and time as a restorative for fainting or swooning fits.

Scrimshaw
Though it frequently refers to the delicate engraving made by seamen on ivory tusks, it can signify any craft, such as knitting, performed by sailors to pass the time on long sea voyages.

Shallop
A small sea boat, stoutly made and often armed.

Short sea
The waters of bays and estuaries and narrow straits, through and across which vessels may ply without losing sight, at least for extended periods, of the nearby land.

Sloop
A small and moderately fast sailing ship, often carrying guns on its upper decks.

Snood
A kind of hairnet which sits at the back of a woman’s head, like a cap.

Sphagnum
Peat moss, which grows in especially boggy places. The word is Greek.

Stromatolite
The fossil remains of a large aggregation of ancient algae or cyanobacteria, made solid by the absorption of calcareous material to form what looks like an oddly shaped and often large limestone nodule.

Subduction
An important process in tectonic plate movement, in which a heavy oceanic plate collides with a lighter continental plate and is forced down below it. Often it then melts and its magma is forced upward, forming lines of volcanoes such as those in the Pacific Northwest of America.

Supercargo
A ship’s officer who supervises the loading, management, and eventual unloading of the cargo.

Taffrail
The rail at the very stern end of a ship, to which departing passengers migrate to wave their farewells to those remaining on land.

Telltale
A mechanical device of varying design that communicates the heading of a ship to crew other than those in the wheelhouse.

Touareg
Nomadic desert people, a subgroup of the Berbers, who inhabit the Sahara from Algeria to Mauritania. They often wear robes of vivid blue.

Well-found
A naval term signifying that a ship is amply supplied with victuals and equipment to allow it to make even the most hazardous of voyages.

Zircon
A crystalline mineral, a silicate compound of zirconium, found in the world’s most ancient rocks.

Index

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Accidents, 322–27, 449–56

Acetone, 269–70

Acidity, ocean, 391–92

Action of the 18th of September 1639, 241–42

Admiral Graf Spee
(ship), 257–60

Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer, 349

Africa

art of, 163

Cape Bojador as barrier to exploring Atlantic coast of, 104–14

Ethiopia as name of, 96n

human settlement on Atlantic shores of, 23–24, 54–60

Phoenician circumnavigation of, 67n

Skeleton Coast wreck in southwestern, 449–59

slave trade in, 221, 227–39

viewing, from Gibraltar, 173

African Ocean name, 96n

After the Hurricane, Bahamas
(painting), 198

Agamemnon
(ship), 132, 306–8

Agulhas Leakage, 439–40

Air traffic control centers, 338, 342–43

Air transport

air routes of, 339
f

author’s first crossing of Atlantic by, 14–17

development of, 329–45

economics of, vs. passenger liner transport, 12–13

Eyjafjoll volcano and, 343, 437

pollution from, 345–48

warfare and, 266

Alaska Oceans Foundation, 361

Albert I, Prince, 100–102, 140–42

Alcock, Jack, 336–38

Alfred, Prince, 183n

Alguada Reef lighthouse, 191n

Allingham, Henry, 255n

All-Saints Flood of 1170, 413

Althing parliament, 274–75

Altitudes, air travel, 341–42

Amateur Emigrant, The
(book), 321

Amazon River, 94, 146

Ambergris, 289

America, 91–97.
See also
United States

Andrea Doria
(ship), 323, 324
f

Andulo
(ship), 323

Anglo-Saxon poetry, 154–58

Antarctica, 401, 405, 410–11

Anthrax pollution, 390

Aon Benfield reinsurance company, 436

Arabs, 70

Architecture, 171–92

Arctic Ocean, 356n, 395–402, 405, 408–9

Argentia, Newfoundland, 17–18

Argentina, 47, 128, 207–11, 266–68, 318–20, 383n, 444–47

Argo Merchant
(ship), 323

Aristotle, 230

Artistic expressions, 149–206

African imagery, 163

architecture of oceanside cities, 171–92

Artistic expressions (
cont.
)

earliest Irish and Norse poetry and epics, 153–59

early European visual imagery in tapestries and maps, 159–61

European and American paintings, 196–99

European poetry, 167–70

European visual arts, 163–67

literature, 199–206

music, 192–96

pre-Columbian Native American imagery, 162–63

William Shakespeare’s play
The Tempest
, 149–52

Ascension Island, 188

As You Like It
(play), 25–27

Atlantic Charter, 17–18

Atlantic cod, 8–9, 280–83, 363–78

Atlantic Community idea, 19–20, 301–2

Atlantic Creek, 148

Atlantic Deep, 356–57

Atlantic Highlands, 178

Atlantic History, 449

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, 426

Atlantic Ocean

alternative names for, 20, 35, 49, 72, 79, 96–97

artistic expressions about (
see
Artistic expressions)

author’s dedication of this book about, 449–56

author’s first crossing of, 1–13, 16–19, 364–65

birth, death, and lifespan of, 21–22, 35–49, 402–3, 432–38, 441–49 (
see also
Plate tectonics; Seismic activity)

climate change, global warming, and (
see
Climate change; Global warming)

commerce on (
see
Commerce)

degradations of (
see
Degradations)

explorations of (
see
Explorations)

humankind’s evolving relationship with, 13–15, 18–21 (
see also
Humankind)

other bodies of water vs., 21, 34

scientific investigation of (
see
Scientific investigations)

size of, 20, 104, 145, 372n

themes of this book about, 13–15, 19–27

warfare on (
see
Naval warfare)

Atlantic right whales, 285–87

Atlantic Telegraph Company, 132, 305–10, 312–13

Atlantis
(ship), 126n

Atlas Mountains, 43–44, 173

Atmospheric ozone depletion, 346, 438–40

Atmospheric warming.
See
Global warming

Atomic weapons waste, 355–57

Australia, 409n

Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, An
(book), 239

Aztec Empire, 219–20

Bacon, Sir Francis, 68–69

Bahamas, 86, 419, 425

Baked Alaska, 118n

Baleen whales, 285n, 287, 384

Balfour Declaration and Arthur Balfour, 270–71

Bangladesh, 412n

Banshee
(ship), 247–48

Barcas (ships), 111–12

Bar Light Vessel, 5

Barracoon (slave depot), 228

Basalt, 43–44, 45n

Basques, 282–86

Bathybius haeckelii
life-form folly, 135

Battle names, 242n

Battle of Hampton Roads, 248–50

Battle of Jutland, 251–55

Battle of the Atlantic, 264–66, 268–70

Battle of the Nile, 245

Battle of Trafalgar, 243–46

Battleship (term), 242

Bayeux tapestry, 160

Bay of Biscay, 141, 145, 284

Bay of Fundy, 43–44, 145, 201

Beagle
survey expedition, 124–26

Beaufort wind scale, 124

Beaux Arts Custom House, 179–80

Bedloe’s Island, 179

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 194

Beluga SkySails
(ship), 353

Beowulf
(poem), 155

Bergen, Norway, 75, 161, 279–80

Berlioz, Hector, 99

Bermuda, 150–52

Billy Budd
(book), 195

Biofuels, 347

Biology, oceanic, 136–40, 142

Biremes (ships), 211

Black Ball Line, 296–301

Black Bart, 225, 227–30

Blackbeard, 225

Black flags, 223, 268

Black Sea, 21, 412, 435

Blériot, Louis, 335

Bluefin tuna, 363

Blue Ocean Institute, 361

Boeing 787 Dreamliner, 346–47

Bonnie Hurricane, 422
f

Bonny, Anne, 225–26

Boorstin, Daniel, 90

Borges, Jorge Luis, 209

Botanical oceanography, 121

Bouvet Island, 46, 47n

Bowhead whales, 285–86

Boyle, Robert, 121

Braudel, Fernand, 218

Brazil, 93n, 94, 108n, 112, 237, 318, 418

Breezing Up
(painting), 198

Britain.
See
Great Britain

British Admiralty Pilots (books), 204–5

British Airways, 329, 334–35, 339–45

British Museum, 76

British Petroleum, 145, 252n, 348, 403

British Post Office, 190, 291–93, 299

Britten, Benjamin, 194–95

Bronner, André, 445

Brown, Arthur Whitten, 336–38

Brueghel the Elder, Peter, 166

Buccaneers, 225.
See also
Pirates

Buchanan, James, 309

Buchanan, Liberia, 418–19

Buchanan, Thomas, 419n

Burma, 191n

Button, Jemmy, 125–26

Cables, undersea, 131–32, 184, 303–10

Cabot, John, 92, 115n, 283, 364, 368, 376

Caboto, Giovani, 283n

Cabral, Pedro, 112

Cádiz, Spain, 66, 172–75
f
, 177

Caedmon, 158

Caesar, Julius, 211–12

Cailleach whirlpool, 160

Calico Jack, 225

Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
(music), 194

Cambrian period, 39

Canada, 283–84.
See also
Newfoundland

Canadian Pacific, 1–3

Canaletto, 167

Canary Current, 109

Canary Islands, 106, 111–12, 435–36

Candles, 289

Canoes, 62, 71

Cape Bojador, 104–14, 238

Cape Coast Castle, 227–30, 232

Cape Fria, 453

Cape Horn, 128, 130, 289, 411, 444

Cape Juby, 106, 108

Cape of Good Hope, 130, 181, 185, 194

Cape Race lighthouse, 8

Cape Town, South Africa, 181–86, 419

Cape Vagina, 102n

Cape Verde Islands, 422
f
, 424

Captains Courageous
(book and film), 8, 365–68

Caravels (ships), 112

Carbon dioxide and carbon emissions, 346–53, 391–92, 406–7, 429–32

Cargoes
(poem), 65n

Cargo shipping, 284–85, 290–301, 348–53

Caribbean Sea, 145, 217, 291, 423–24, 436–37

Caroline
(ship), 255n

Carson, Rachel, 204–5, 353–58

Carta Marina
map, 161

Carthaginians, 174

Cartier, Jacques, 283

Cartography.
See also
Maps

Benjamin Franklin’s, and oceanography, 120

International Hydrographic Organization, 100–104, 142–43

M. F. Maury and American maritime, 129–33

Cartouches, 161

Cassius Dio, 69

Castles, slave, 227–29, 232–34

Casualties, 322–27

Catherine the Great, 167

Catholic Church, 78n, 86.
See also
Christianity

Cave, Pinnacle Point, 57–60

Celestial navigation, 110

Celmins, Vija, 197

Celtic Sea, 145

Chabotto, Zuan, 283n

Challenge
clipper ship, 300
f

Challenger
(ship), 126n

Challenger
expedition, 126, 135–40

Charts, navigation, 101–4, 110, 129
f
, 142–43.
See also
Maps

Chemical pollution, 357–58, 390

Chestnuts, 269–70

Chichester, Francis, 203

Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish), 362–63, 378, 384–86, 389

Chisholm, Penny, 430–31

Chlorophyll, 429
f
, 430

Christianity, 72–73, 78n, 86, 215–20, 230–31

Churchill, Winston, 17–18, 247, 262, 264–65, 278n

Circulation, ocean, 123.
See also
Currents

Cities, oceanside, 171–92, 412–18, 426–27

Civil War, U. S., 247–50

Clarke, Arthur C., 33–34

Clephan, James, 246

Climate change

global warming and (
see
Global warming)

human impacts on, 402–7

ozone depletion and, 438–40

scandal about science of, 408n

Clipper ships, 300
f

Clouds, cargo shipping lanes and, 348–49

Cnut, King, 214

Coastlines, 124, 322–23.
See also
Cities, oceanside

Coca, 84n, 90

Cod.
See
Atlantic cod

Cogs (shifts), 278

Colam Cille, 153

Columbia
(ship), 126n

Columbus, Bartholomew, 175–76

Columbus, Christopher, 75, 77, 84–91, 115, 165, 217

Columbus Day, 77, 88–89

Commerce, 273–328

as American motivation for expeditions, 123–24, 126–27

casualties and accidents at sea, 322–27

commercial air transport, 329–45

degradations of (
see
Degradations)

early commercial fishing and whaling, 280–90

Hanseatic League and rules of trade, 275–80

Iceland’s first true parliamentary democracy, 273–75

packet ships and cargo shipping, 290–301

passenger transport, 314–21

trade routes, 319
f

transatlantic communication, 301–14

Commerce raiders, German, 257–64

Communication, transatlantic, 131–32, 301–14

Community, Atlantic, 19–20, 301–2

Compass, 112

Congo River, 146

Conqueror
(ship), 268

Conquistadors, Spanish, 218–20

Conrad, Joseph, 205

Consensus politics, 413

Constitution
(ship), 243n, 246–47

Container shipping, 350–52.
See also
Cargo shipping

Continents, 37–42, 179–80

Convoys, 242–43, 264–66

Cook, James, 126n, 383

Cooper, Peter, 305

Coral Sea, 21

Coriolis force, 424

Corryvreckan whirlpool, 160–61

Côrte-Real, Miguel and Gaspar, 92

Cortés, Hernán, 218–20

Cotton, 293–95

Countersubmarine warfare, 264–66, 268–71

Courier
(ship), 297

Cretaceous period, 46

“Crossing the pond” phrase, 15n, 332

Crow, Hugh, 233

Crowhurst, Donald, 203, 205, 327

Cullinery, John, 378

Cumbre Vieja volcano, 435–36

Cunard, Samuel, 263, 315–16

Currency

Moroccan, 51–52

Spanish, 87n

Currents, 114–15, 123, 401, 434.
See also
Gulf Stream

Current sailing technique, 110

Cyanide pollution, 358

Cyclical hurricane patterns, 426

Cyclogenetic regions, 424

Cyclones, 423n

Cynewulf, 158

da Cunha, Tristan, 112

Da Gama, Vasco, 112

d’Albuquerque, Alfonso, 112

Dana, Richard Henry, 201

Darling, Grace, 327

Darwin, Charles, 124–26

Davis Strait, 410

Dead zone, 344–45

Debussy, Claude, 195–96

Decker, George, 80–81

Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform, 403

Defoe, Daniel, 225, 413

Degradations, 329–93.
See also
Global warming

British efforts to counter, in South Atlantic fishery, 378–89

Rachel Carson’s writing about, 353–56

chemical pollution, 357–58

from commercial air transport, 345–48

from commercial cargo shipping, 348–53