The prediction which Piddington put in italics was eventually verified, though nearly a century later. “Nothing indeed can more clearly show,” Piddington continued, “how this may, with a well appointed and managed vessel be done in perfect safety—performed by mere chance by a fast-sailing colonial brig, manned only as a bullock trader, but capitally officered, and developing for the seaman and meteorologist a view of what we may almost call the _internal_ phenomena of winds and waves in a hurricane.” But this was only the beginning. Learning the secrets of the hurricane proved to be far more difficult than Redfield, Reid and Piddington had imagined. The world looked in amazement at the tremendous labors of a few men who collected enormous quantities of reports, interviews, and observations from mariners and tried to put the bits together, but there was a prevailing suspicion that the real facts were locked in the minds of men who had gone to their doom in ships sunk in the centers of these awful storms and the lucky ones who came back had seen only a part of their ultimate terrors. In these days of relatively safe navigation at the middle of the twentieth century, our minds are scarcely able to grasp the seriousness of this scourge of tropical and subtropical seas which destroyed so many ships and drove busy men, working long hours for a living, to such tremendous labors, at night and at odd times, to learn the truth. We may get some light from the stories of desperate sailors who, by some strange fate, were thrown exhausted on the rocks that finally claimed the broken remains of once-proud vessels of trade and war. _3._ AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA “_Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon: Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea._” —Shakespeare Two hundred years ago, scientists were beginning to chart the winds over the oceans and the currents that thread their way across the surface of deep waters. Until this work was finished, the mariner was almost completely at the mercy of the atmosphere and the sea. He would come to uncharted places where the winds ceased to blow and sailing vessels might be becalmed for weeks. Day after day, the burning sun climbed slowly toward the zenith and while the unbearable heat tortured the crew, descended with agonizing slowness toward the western horizon. At night, relief came under unclouded skies but the stars gave no indication of better fortunes on the morrow.