Page 116 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

transportation—overview 1893

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious
possession. • Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Iceland, Greenland, and, for a short while, even in New- sometimes overlapping ranges of operation. By 1492
foundland.Viking boats were strongly built to cut through such knowledge had accumulated among seamen so
big waves, but since they needed large crews for rowing that Columbus, for example, knew exactly how to go
against the wind,they had limited cargo capacity and their south to the Azores, then sail west before the northeast
open hulls allowed seawater to splash over the sides,soak- trade winds and return by sailing north to the zone of
ing crew and cargo alike. prevailing westerlies beyond Cape Hatteras. That was
Really satisfactory all-weather ships needed closed why his voyage was so swiftly and regularly repeated, and
decks, and ways to steer and sail upwind and against the why European seamen so suddenly began to traverse all
tide if necessary. Such ships were eventually constructed the world’s oceans within a mere thirty years after 1492.
in China and in Atlantic Europe, using quite different Methods for measuring latitude north and south by
designs. Chinese ships were flat-bottomed vessels with sighting the sun or north star allowed ships to steer accu-
hulls divided into separate water-tight compartments. rately towards a known coastline, and increasingly accu-
Instead of keels, they had center boards that could be rate local maps and charts made getting into and out of
raised and lowered through a slit in the bottom, and were distant ports much safer. Magnetic compasses, coming
steered by stern-post rudders and by using multiple masts from China initially, also allowed ships to maintain a
and sails. By the fourteenth century, the largest Chinese steady direction under clouded skies where sun and stars
seagoing vessels were huge, expensive and efficient. could not be seen. But until the eighteenth century sailors
Admiral Cheng-ho, for example, led a series of voyages could not measure east-west longitude. Finding small
to the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, the first of islands and exact time of arrival on familiar coasts across
which comprised sixty-two ships and carried no fewer ocean distances therefore remained hit and miss until
than 27,800 men. marine chronometers, able to keep time for weeks and
By that same date, sea-going European ships improved months on end, made longitude at sea accurately meas-
on Viking designs by being decked over, with double urable after 1762.
planked hulls nailed,inside and out,to a rib and keel skele- Nonetheless, European capabilities of ocean voyag-
ton as before.They dispensed with rowing by using mul- ing transformed human affairs rather quickly long
tiple masts and sails,some triangular (originating probably before finding small islands became easy to do.The Chi-
in the Indian ocean) for tacking into the wind, some nese government had withdrawn from overseas ven-
square for sailing before it. Such a combination of masts tures after 1433 and disbanded its sea-going fleet so as
and sails,together with stern-post rudders (probably com- to concentrate its resources instead on guarding China’s
ing from China), made it possible to come and go almost land frontier against the Mongols. This left European
at will despite the variable winds and strong tides that seamen without serious competition on a global scale,
beset Europe’sAtlantic coastlines.Indeed once sailors were since light-built shipping of the southern seas could not
capable of traversing those stormy seas,other oceans of the endure northern storms. The stout construction of
earth, except the frozen Arctic, were comparatively easy North Atlantic ships also withstood the recoil of newly
since the reversible monsoons of Asia were matched by invented heavy cannon, and this gave European ships
trade winds north and south of the equator that blow year another advantage over more lightly built vessels.
round from a single but opposite direction. Cannon-carrying European ships made older ramming
Deciphering the pattern of ocean winds and currents and boarding tactics of naval warfare suddenly obsolete
was a matter of trial and error over generations, as ships since they could sink approaching enemies at a dis-
became capable of longer and longer voyages. Arab, tance, and could even threaten local rulers ashore with
Indian, Polynesian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, European punishing bombardment. Wherever such vessels
and other seamen all did so within their different, and appeared therefore local rulers had to accommodate