"Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where
And not a drop to drink!"
Happily "dead calms" do not generally last so long as to lead to any
serious result. Sailors have a superstitious and foolish belief that
whistling in a calm will bring up a breeze, and they do this in a
drawling, beseeching tone, on some prominent part of the vessel. Poor
fellows! what a pity that their thoughts should not more frequently be
directed to Him "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
and meted out heaven with a span," and whose works and wonders in the
deep "they that go down to the sea in ships" have such abundant
opportunity for observing.
HEAVING THE LEAD.
Here we have a sailor in the act of heaving the lead, or taking
soundings, which is a thing extremely necessary to be done when a ship
is approaching the shore, as there is great danger of her running on a
sand-bank or striking on a sunken rock. I will now tell you how it is
managed. A sailor gets over the ship's side, as you see in the
engraving, and takes his station in what are called "the chains;" he
holds in his hand a coil of rope, with the length in fathoms marked upon
it; this rope has a mass of lead attached to the end of it.
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