disposed to rest satisfied with the progress already made, than the age
in which we live; for there never was an age more distinguished for
ingenious research, for novel result, and bold generalization.

That no further improvement is desirable in the means and methods of
ascertaining the ship's place at sea, no one I think will from
experience be disposed to assert. The last time I crossed the Atlantic,
I walked the quarter-deck with the officer in charge of the noble
vessel, on one occasion, when we were driving along before a leading
breeze and under a head of steam, beneath a starless sky at midnight, at
the rate certainly of ten or eleven miles an hour. There is something
sublime, but approaching the terrible, in such a scene;--the rayless
gloom, the midnight chill,--the awful swell of the deep,--the dismal
moan of the wind through the rigging, the all but volcanic fires within
the hold of the ship. I scarce know an occasion in ordinary life in
which a reflecting mind feels more keenly its hopeless dependence on
irrational forces beyond its own control. I asked my companion how
nearly he could determine his ship's place at sea under favorable
circumstances. Theoretically, he answered, I think, within a
mile;--practically and usually within three or four. My next question
was, how near do you think we may be to Cape Race;--that dangerous
headland which pushes its iron-bound unlighted bastions from the
shore of Newfoundland far into the Atlantic,--first landfall to
the homeward-bound American vessel. We must, said he, by our last
observations and reckoning, be within three or four miles of Cape Race.
A comparison of these two remarks, under the circumstances in which we
were placed at the moment, brought my mind to the conclusion, that it is
greatly to be wished that the means should be discovered of finding the
ship's place more accurately, or that navigators would give Cape Race a
little wider berth. But I do not remember that one of the steam packets