An interesting series of experiments which ultimately were never really used much commercially was the atmospheric railway, where trains were hauled by air pressure/vacuum in pipes. More information here and here
Jean Laurent Sea Ballads…I have many favorites The Sea THE sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round! It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies. I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be; With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go; If a storm should come and awake the deep, What mater? I shall ride and sleep. I love, oh, how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, When every mad wave drowns the moon, Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the sou'west blasts do blow. I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more, And backward flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she was, and is, to me; For I was born on the open sea! The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcy wild As welcomed to life the ocean's child! I've lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers, a sailor's life, With wealth to spend and a power to range, But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea! Barry Cornwall (Bryan Waller Procter)
I used to play for a football team whose goalkeeper was known as the Ancient Mariner. Not because of his appearance, but because he 'stoppeth one in three.'
Ballad of the Tempest WE were crowded in the cabin, Not a soul would dare to sleep,-- It was midnight on the waters, And a storm was on the deep. 'Tis a fearful thing in winter To be shattered by the blast, And to hear the rattling trumpet Thunder, "Cut away the mast!" So we shuddered there in silence,-- For the stoutest held his breath, While the hungry sea was roaring And the breakers talked with death. As thus we sat in darkness Each one busy with his prayers, "We are lost!" the captain shouted, As he staggered down the stairs. But his little daughter whispered, As she took his icy hand, "Isn't God upon the ocean, Just the same as on the land?" Then we kissed the little maiden, And we spake in better cheer, And we anchored safe in harbor When the morn was shining clear. James T. Fields
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is very long but one of my favorite parts is… The sun, right up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, With a short uneasy motion - Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life returned, I heard and in my soul discerned Two voices in the air. `Is it he?' quoth one, `Is this the man? By him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross.
I remember this from childhood The Wreck of the Hesperus BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South. Then up and spake an old Sailòr, Had sailed to the Spanish Main, "I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. "Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. "Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow." He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. "O father! I hear the church-bells ring, Oh say, what may it be?" "'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" — And he steered for the open sea. "O father! I hear the sound of guns, Oh say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!" "O father! I see a gleaming light, Oh say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That savèd she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe. And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, Ho! ho! the breakers roared! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe!
The air The water from rain to help Earth and all the living Both air with her winds and rains with their replenishment of water helped the exploration voyagers to find much of Earth's mysteries.