e other hand, the sailing vessels had no difficulty in finding
capitalists to take shares in a venture. Capital, in fact, was
obstinately in favour of sails, and as obstinately against boilers and
paddle-wheels. At Guernsey, the Durande was indeed a fact, but steam was
not yet an established principle. Such is the fanatical spirit of
conservatism in opposition to progress. They said of Lethierry, "It is
all very well; but he could not do it a second time." Far from
encouraging, his example inspired timidity. Nobody would have dared to
risk another Durande.

VI

THE SLOOP "CASHMERE" SAVES A SHIPWRECKED CREW

The equinoctial gales begin early in the Channel. The sea there is
narrow, and the winds disturb it easily. The westerly gales begin from
the month of February, and the waves are beaten about from every
quarter. Navigation becomes an anxious matter. The people on the coasts
look to the signal-post, and begin to watch for vessels in distress. The
sea is then like a cut-throat in ambush for his victim. An invisible
trumpet sounds the alarm of war with the elements, furious blasts spring
up from the horizon, and a terrible wind soon begins to blow. The dark
night whistles and howls. In the depth of the clouds the black tempest
distends its cheeks, and the storm arises.

The wind is one danger; the fogs are another.

Fogs have from all time been the terror of mariners. In certain fogs
microscopic prisms of ice are found in suspension, to which Mariotte
attributes halos, mock suns, and paraselenes. Storm-fogs are of a
composite character; various gases of unequal specific gravity combine
with the vapour of water, and arrange themselves, layer over layer, in
an order which divides the dense mist into zones. Below ranges the
iodine; above the iodine is the sulphur; above the sulphur the brome;
above the brome the phosphorus. This, in a certain manner, and making
allowance for electric and magnetic tension, explains several phenomena,
as the St. Elmo's Fire of Columbus and Magellan, the flying stars moving
about the ships, of which Seneca speaks; the two flames, Castor and
Pollux, mentioned by Plutarch; the Roman legion, whose spears appeared
to Caesar to take fire; the peak of the Chateau of Duino in Friuli which
the sentinel made to sparkle by touching it with his lance; and perhaps
even those fulgurations from the earth which the ancients called Satan's
terrestrial lightnings. At the equator, an immense mist