Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1876-08-10
NO.. 49,.

anu W 1dVCAoC IL IcvulEeS more Skill
| and patience than even Drawing the
simooms of the great Hyrcanian des-
ert. Predominating to the extent of
three to two, the waters of the earth
have manifestly the greatest, if not the
main in it's climacteric conditions.
BY ascertaining the depth of the
ocean; measuring the changing force
ffilre in its various depths correspond
| ing results could be ascertained as to
the causes Of atmospheric conditions
analogous strata of land.
The first point of interest developed
by the voyage was the regularity of
| the bed of the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans. The former, with but few
marked deprcssions, developed al al
most uniform depth of 1900 feet,
while the Pacific was found uniformly
| 500 feet deeper. Since ROllina, indeed
back to uerolotus, the sea-beds had
been held to be mountains-presenting
indeed the more singular, the bottoms
for hundreds of miles instead of ooze
| and slime in measureless stretches, or
coral reefs. or weed.clad rocks, as rep
resented immemorially, presents a
| smooth surface of clalk.dust How
| this amazing conformation came to
| pass Prof. Huxley explains with plaus-
| ibility. Instead of being the resul. of
| attrition of shell-fish covering the bot
tom of the sea, it comes from she'll
fish which never during life come
within mile of the bottom, but which
suspended in mid-depth, disport them
selves during the day Of their brief
destiny, then dying, their shells sink
in clouds to the bottom, forming, in
good time, by the incessant action of
the water, the wonderful marble-like
covering which the explorers found
covering the oceans bed for countless
miles. OF this singular creation and
dispersion Huxley says: '.The re-
mains in question arc the shells of Or
ganisms which live at the surface and
not at the bottom, and that this de-
posit, which is of the same nature as
the ancient chalk, differing in some
minor respects, but essentially the
same, is absolutely formed by a rain Of
skeletons. These creatures all live
within 100 fathoms of the surface
and being subject to the fate of all
living things, they sooner or later die,
and when they die their skeletons are
rained down in one continual shower,
! falling through Il mile or couple of
| miles of sea water. How long they
| take about it imagination fails one in
supposing, but at last they get to the
bottom, and there, piled up, they form
| the great stratum OF substance. which,
if upheayed, would be exactly like
chalk
This marvellous discovery may ena-
bic the puzzled geologists to settle the
| long.standing disputes as to the origin
of the English and French chalk STRAIT
| ums and cliffs. In other parts of the
world of waters it was found at "a depth
of five miles that the bottom consisted
of hard red clay and that the shells Or
ganisms which had sunk in other parts,
remained suspended something like Il
mile from the surface! Other discov-
| cries not less fascinating were made us
| TO the conditions of deep sea tempera-
ture. The orders of the government
| directed the explorers to traverse the
length of the Atlantic from the icy
SHOWS and frosts of the Arctic to the
| burning heats of the Antarctic. Then
to pass back again down the coast of
the continent to the cape of Good Hope,
cross the Pacific in it's southern basin
to Australia, and hover among her CO.
raj strands for season. Then to lin.
ger in the Yellow sea, pass backward
to China, rccross the Pacific S northern
basin, round Cape Horn, and back
across the Atlantic home. This COW
cred the 1000 miles of water run over
by the Challenger, and is probably the
most extended venture of science. 1t
has been successful in demonstrating
the exact depths of the sea; something
more of the laws controlling currents
than was heretofore known; the con-
ditions governing the temperature of
the sea and the laws of it's anti-lunar
tides the forms of life that inhabit
the alternate depths the mineral mat
ters that lap out of circum-ad jacent
continents the very veins of water,
so to speak, which mark the changes
in the attitudes; where and how
islands are formed, springing up from
kernals, mysteriously dropped i'll the
rolling burrows of the measureless
seas the laws which doom some of
these to rocky barrenness and pushes
others forward into emerald isles of
blossoming plenty.
The specialists OH board when they
present their reports will be enabled
to give a complete and thorough histO.
ry Of the physical conformation Of the
bottom of the sea, from continent to
continent, and from the incidents hint
ed by Profs. Huxley and Thompson, at
the Edinburgh dinner, many of the ex.
listing theories will be swept aside by
these circumstantially newer facts
For example, it has never been assert
ed, until this trip showed it, that the
salt seas at a certain depth fall to a
temperature at which fresh water
freezes this, too, irrespective of the
latitude. While quite as curious, the
inequality in the surface of the seas
bottom produced very susceptible diff
ferences both in the temperature and
the tides. Prof. Thompson, who was
in charge Of the scientific part of the
exploration, explains this point: 1--WE
usually determined correctly the bot
tom temperature, and then that of the
various strata from the bottom up tt
the surface. We We're inclined tt
come to the conclusion that the great
mass of the water we found in tht
troughs of the Atlantic and Pacific i:
! derived from the southern sea.
At various localities iH the Pacific
and Atlantic the temperature of tn
water precisely, or very nearly SO
, agreed with water at the same deptl
in the southern sea, and the tempera
ture of the bottom water in the AT
. lantic or the Pacific at any one localit
) depended apparently upon the heigh
5 of the barrier which separated tina
: particular portion of the ocean fr0n
t the southern sea from which it is de
I rived. Thus in this way all over tn
Y Atlantic and Pacific oceans we coul
! almost tell by the temperature of tn
h water the height of the ridges whic
e separated it from it's source"
q Never did the men who go down t
I sea in ships see more wonders, nc
30. }:s IG SIS