The Pirate: And The Three Cutters: Complete

How many thousands of vessels-how many millions of property-have been abandoned, andeventually consigned to the all-receiving depths of the ocean, through ignorance or through fear What a mine of wealth must lie buried in its sands what riches lie entangled amongst its rocks, orremain suspended in its unfathomable gulf, where the compressed fluid is equal in gravity to thatwhich it encircles, there to remain secured in its embedment from corruption and decay, until thedestruction of the universe and the return of chaos Yet, immense as the accumulated loss may be, the major part of it has been occasioned from an ignorance of one of the first laws of nature, that ofspecific gravity. The vessel to which we have referred was, to all appearance, in a situation of asextreme hazard as that of a drowning man clinging to a single rope-yarn; yet, in reality, she was moresecure from descending to the abyss below than many gallantly careering on the waters, theiroccupants dismissing all fear, and only calculating upon a quick arrival into port