R. M. Ballantyne 
Man on the Ocean A Book about Boats and Ships [EPUB ebook] 

Excerpt: "Ships are, as it were, the electric sparks of the world, by means of which the superabundance of different countries is carried forth to fill, reciprocally, the voids in each. They are not only the media of intercourse between the various families of the human race, whereby our shores are enriched with the produce of other lands, but they are the bearers of inestimable treasures of knowledge from clime to clime, and of gospel light to the uttermost ends of the earth. But for ships, we should never have heard of the wonders of the coral isles and the beauties of the golden South, or the phenomena and tempests of the icy North. But for ships, the stirring adventures and perils of Magellan, Drake, Cook, etcetera, had never been encountered; and even the far-famed Robinson Crusoe himself had never gladdened, and saddened, and romantically maddened the heart of youth with his escapes, his fights, his parrots, and his philosophy, as he now does, and as he will continue to do till the end of time."