where a great number of them can lie at anchor under shelter from the winds and waves, or at least under shelter from the waves. The English have several, noble harbors and roadsteads on their side of the channel. The principal one is at Portsmouth, where there is not only an immense harbor entirely enclosed within the land, but also a great roadstead opposite to it, called Spithead, where an almost unlimited number of ships may lie at anchor, protected by the Isle of Wight, which, like a natural breakwater, shelters them not only from the seas rolling in from the Atlantic up the channel, but also in a great measure from the winds. Portsmouth has consequently been made the principal naval station of Great Britain, and Spithead is the great rendezvous of the fleets and squadrons that are preparing to go forth on distant expeditions, and the final resting place of the ships when they return home. In reading English history and English tales, especially those relating to the sea, you will continually meet with allusions to ships coming home from sea and anchoring at Spithead, and of the officers or passengers going on shore at Portsmouth to proceed to London. It is supposed that the growth of the English naval power, which, until within a short period, has been far in advance of that of any other nation in the world, has been owing in no inconsiderable degree to the position of the Isle of Wight, and to the protection which it affords to the water sheltered by it, forming as it does so large and excellent an anchorage for ships of war, and one situated in precisely the most convenient place possible for ships going out or coming home. The tidal harbors constructed by means of artificial piers on the French side of the channel are wholly insufficient, as has already been said, for the purposes of men of war. For these an extensive anchorage ground is required, freely accessible at all times. It is necessary that this anchorage ground should be very large, for a ship when riding at anchor requires a great deal of space. In the first place it is necessary, when the anchor is let down, to pay out a very considerable length of cable in order to make the anchor take hold-generally, in the case of a large ship and of pretty deep water, a length of several hundred, and sometimes of nearly a thousand feet. At the end of this cable the ship rides with her head to the anchor, and she plays all around the anchor, according as the tides or currents or winds impel her, but always with her head toward it. Thus for each ship a great cir cular space is required, nearly a thousand feet in diameter, within which no other anchor can be dropped without danger of the cables becoming crossed and fouled, and perhaps even of the ships themselves coming into collision. It is true that ships when they are to remain for a long time in the same position may be moored head and stern, in which case they are held fixed in one position, and are prevented from swinging round with the tide. But ordinarily they are held by one or more anchors attached to the bow, and thus they require a large space extending around the anchor as a centre, which the ship may traverse freely in every direction, without having any other ship near enough to interfere with it. Thus to furnish anchorage ground for a great navy, a roadstead of several square miles in extent is required. In this roadstead the water must be deep enough to float the largest ships at low tide, and not too deep for conveniently putting down and taking up the anchors; the bottom, too, must be of such a kind that the anchors will easily take hold of it, and lastly, the whole space must be well sheltered from the sea. Such a place the English have at Spithead, There, for an extent of several miles the water is of the right depth, the bottom is of the right consistency, and the whole space is sheltered from the swell of the sea, by the Isle of Wight on the one side, and by a point of land projecting from the English main land on the other. The French having no such natural place of shelter determined to make one. Their plan was to find somewhere along their coast, a place in some open bay, where the depth of water was right and the bottom was good, and then to build a breakwater on the outer side of it, to prevent the waves from rolling in, and thus to afford the ships the necessary shelter, while lying at anchor there. The place which they selected was a bay, opposite the town of Cherbourg. They began to form plans for building a breakwater here, about two hundred years ago, and the actual work of constructing it has occupied a very long period. It is two miles long, and in connection with two islands not far from the two ends of it, shelters a sheet of water containing many square miles. It is built up from the bottom of the sea, where the water at high tide is forty or fifty feet deep. It is more than a hundred feet wide on the top, and it spreads to an immensely greater breadth below. It contains three immense castles, one in the middle and one at each end. It is perhaps the most massive, and in some respects the most difficult work ever constructed by man. A roadstead having thus been made by means of the breakwater, the government next made a vast excavation within the land, for a floating dock, with immense ship-yards and arsenals adjoining it, for the construction and fitting out of ships of war. It was necessary to cut this dock mainly out of the solid rock, at an almost incredible cost. Now that the works are all finished, the place forms one of the strongest and most celebrated naval stations in the world, though the English pretend to believe that the breakwater, or the Digue, as the French call it, will not stand permanently against the sea, but that some time or other a tremendous storm will come and sweep it away-a disaster which they have no fear will ever happen to the great natural breakwater, the Isle of Wight, which guards their anchorage ground at Spithead, and the entrance to Portsmouth harbor. |