We next read in the Book of Acts, "But when the fourteenth night was come," (think of being fourteen days in such an awful position!) "as we were driven up and down in Adria, about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country; and sounded, and found it twenty fathoms: and when they had gone a little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms. Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day." The ancients seem to have given the name of "Adria," to that part of the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and the south of Italy, extending up into what we call the Adriatic Sea; here, by the force of the wind and the currents, the ship was driven backwards and forwards, even as far as the islands off the coast of Dalmatia. "Sounding" means measuring how deep the sea is: this is done by means of a piece of lead fastened to a very long string, called "the line," which has marks upon it, to show the number of feet. The lead of course sinks straight down into the water: if it touches the bottom of the sea, it is immediately drawn up, and by observing how much of the line is wet, they can tell how deep the sea is in any particular spot. As every ship has a good portion of it _below_ the water, she requires a certain depth of water to keep her from touching the bottom. The sea generally becomes less deep near the shore, and thus when the shipmen found that the depth of the sea had diminished from twenty to fifteen fathoms, it was high time to wait for daylight to see where they were; lest during the night the ship should run upon some land, or rock, or sandbank, and so be lost. A fathom is seven feet, so that twenty fathoms were 140 feet, and fifteen 105 feet. In order to understand what follows, we must remember that although _now_ anchors are always let down from the _prow_, or fore part of the ship, it was the custom of the ancients to let them down from the _stern_, or hind part of their vessels. Some of the large Egyptian ships do even now carry their anchors at the stern, and not at the prow. The vessel in which St. Paul was, was anchored from the stern by four anchors, to wait for daylight.