The Nevada journal. [volume] (Nevada City, Calif.) 1851-18??, 1857-08-07

W DIlilS up WIG SHOI 10 WHICH lH0 tHllc
was fastered, but the Irvine was not
strong enoug, and if we used larger
one it was too heavy for the shot to car
ry down. Hence we have the inven-
ton of Brooke's excellent apparatus.
the shot is followed, with long reed
running through it; there are quilts in
this reed; now, the shot is left at the
bottom, but the quilts and reeds are
drawn up. The apparatus is so arrang-
ed that the moment the end of the reed
which extends six or eight inches be-
yond the ball-touches the bottom the
shot falls off, and the rest can be easily
drawn up. Provided with these instru-
ments and facilities ship was sent out
to the ocean to take soundings, and it
discovered better than gems and pearls
at the bottom of the seat discovered
the telegraph plateau which is to unite
the Old and New World. The quilts,
on coming up, contained skeletons Of
sea insects of microscopic minuteness !;
these were sent to West Point, and par
ticularly examined by Professor Bailey.
The specimens from the calm sea, from
the Gulf of Mexico, from the Gulf
Stream, all evidently consist of one fam
lily, and are of one kind. When Profess
sor Bailey examined the matter brought
from the telegraph plateau, he found
volcanic cinders in it. We could not
account for it at first; we knew that
the volcanoes of South America had
cast their cinders as far as Cuba; but if
they came from that source, we would
have found them in the Gulf Stream; so
it was useless to look there for an ex-
PLANTATION. 1t was next suggested that
those cinders lying just along the track
of the European steamers might be the
ashes from those boats; SO Professor
Bailey told me to get him some cinders
from the ash-pits of the Baltic and the
Pacific. After giving them a careful
and critical examination, he established
the gratifying fact that steamboats, are
not volcanoes. The source of these Gin
ders still remains mystery; but they
show that the matter there lies as soft
as down at the bottom of the deep sea-
There is no motion or disturbing force
there. Indeed, these soundings suggest
the idea that the sea, like the snow
cloud with its fakes in calm, is always
letting fall upon its bed showers of mi
croscopic shells; and we may readily
imagine that the "sunless wrecks"
which strew its bottom are, in the pro-
cess of ages, hid under this feecy COW
ering, presenting the rounded appear
ance which is seen over the body of the
traveller who has persisted in the snow
storm.
still attic Ocean DeptAs.-The ocean,
especially within and near the tropics,
swarms with life. The remains of its
myriads of moving things are conveyed
by currents, and scattered and lodged
in the course OF time all over its bot
tom. This process, continued for ages,
has covered the depth of the ocean as
with mantle, consisting of organism as
delicate as the immaculate frost, and as
light as the undrifted snowflake on the
mountains. Whenever this beautiful
sounding rod has reached the bottom Of
the deep sea, whether in the Atlantic
or Pacific, the bed of the ocean has been
found of down-like softness. The
lead appears to sink many feet deep in
to the oozy matter there, which has
been strained and filtered through the
sea water. This matter consists of the
skeletons and casts of insects of the sea,
of microscopic minuteness. The cur
rents do not reach down to the bottom
of the deep sea there are no abrading
agents at work here, save alone the
gnawing tooth of time; a rope of sand,
if stretched upon the bed of the ocean,
would be cable strong enough to hold
the longest Geographic wire that art
can draw. At the bottom of the sea
there is protecting cushion of still wa
ter. We have had soundings in the
Gulf Stream, and every thing at the
bottom there is as still as the grave. If
the stream, with its current of four miles
an hour, reached to the bottom of the
sea, it would have torn up or worn
through the surface of the earth, and
we would have gone down to the mol
ten interior. We see in the Table Rock,
at Niagara, what . small stream con-
stantly wearing away will do.