Ocean Transportation Depends Upon Science

Science project idea on how ocean transportation depends upon science.

How Ocean Transportation Depends upon Science

Ocean, transportation follows regular routes which are determined to some extent by available harbors, prevailing winds, ocean currents, the probability of the presence of icebergs, and fogs. In a number of cases routes have been shortened by the construction of canals; the two most important ones are the Suez Canal through the Isthmus between Asia and Africa, connecting the Mediterranean Ocean and the Red Sea, and the Panama Canal through the isthmus between North and South America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Along our eastern coast, the Cape Cod Canal shortens very materially the coastwise route between New York and Boston. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, has saved, in going from the North Atlantic to India and the Far East, the long trip around the southern end of Africa.

The building of the Panama Canal, opened in 1914, was the greatest engineering project of the world. Its influence upon the world's commerce is bound to be very great. It shortens the water route from New York to San Francisco by almost 8000 miles ; from New York to Hawaii by about 6000 miles; from New York to Callao by about 6000 miles; from New York to Sydney, Australia, by about 4000 miles.

The building of this canal was not only an engineering triumph for the United States, but one equally great in the field of sanitation. American physicians, by their work in the canal zone, not only made possible the building of the canal but they demonstrated that tropical diseases are capable of human control.

The sanitary work was under the control of Dr. William C. Gorgas, who built upon the work of the United States yellow fever commission in Cuba, consisting of Drs. Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte, who had proved at the cost of the life of Dr. Lazear that the only way that yellow fever can be transmitted is by the bite of a certain kind of mosquito. Dr. Gorgas, who had already freed Havana and Cuba of the yellow fever plague, was appointed by President Roosevelt to continue the work which made possible the building of the canal. The French had been defeated by the mosquitoes years before in their attempt to build the canal without even having known that these insects were their enemies.

That harbors are necessary for the best development of a country is realized in comparing the coast line of Africa with its few harbors to that of Europe with its many fine ones. Countries are ready to go to war to get an outlet to the sea. Because of the importance of ocean commerce, nations have cooperated to encourage it in every way possible. The oceans and especially the waters near shores, where most danger lies, have been carefully charted; lines of magnetic force determined and charted; prevailing winds studied; great breakwaters constructed; harbor channels kept dredged; lighthouses, buoys, and foghorns placed as guides; life saving stations located at intervals along the coasts; vessels and shipping offices furnished every day with weather forecasts and special warnings on the occasion of storms.

Since wireless telegraphy has come into use, a vessel may be at all times in touch with land stations and other ships, so that the danger of serious results from a breakdown, fire, or wreck at sea is very much minimized.

In addition to contributing largely to bringing about the conditions just mentioned, science is being called on for help in building larger, faster, and more seaworthy ships. In our own country the demand of the war for more ships has stimulated shipbuilding to such an extent that the United States is destined to become a leading ship owning country. The ability of the captain to sail his vessel and bring it into port depends upon his scientific training and the scientific instruments which his ship carries. Without the mariner's compass, the sextant, the chronometer, together with his charts and nautical almanac, all the results of highly specialized science work, his ship would be an aim- less wanderer.