~ Horse Latitudes ~
[one of the most poetic and, at the same time, most sad and dark oceanographic terms I know]
[Image: 'Subversion' by Miriam Sweeney]
Conversation
'These are what are called the horse latitudes. It was here
that navigators of bygone ages were accustomed to cast their horses into the sea to lighten the ship in stormy weather, and to economize the fresh water when becalmed.'
('The Toilers of the Sea: A Novel', Victor Hugo)
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However, this can't be completely right, since the horse latitudes are zones of high subtropical atmospheric pressures, located on both sides of the Earth's equator. They have mostly calm winds, too calm sometimes: that was the problem
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'They were so called', writes Matthew Fontaine Maury, 'from the circumstance that vessels formerly bound from New England to the West Indies, with a deck-load of horses, were often so delayed in this calm belt of Cancer, that for the want of water for their animals...
Replying to
... they were compelled to throw a portion of them overboard'
(Matthew Fontaine Maury, 'Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology', 1861, Ch. 11)
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Paul Muldoon's poetry collection 'Horse Latitudes' (2006) contains a sonnet sequence called ‘Horse Latitudes’ that he wrote 'as the U.S. embarked on its foray into Iraq. The poems have to do with a series of battles (all beginning with the letter ‘B’ as if to suggest...
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a ‘missing’ Baghdad) in which horses or mules played a major role'
(Paul Muldoon, ‘Horse Latitudes,’ The Poetry Book Society Bulletin, no. 210 (2006), 5)
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Highly recommended reading is also 'The Egghead Republic. Short Novel from the Horse Latitudes' by Arno Schmidt ['Die Gelehrtenrepublik: Kurzroman aus den Rossbreiten'], an anti-utopian novel (1957) on a post-apocalyptic floating island
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inhabited by a group of selected geniuses and located somewhere near the Horse Latitudes
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