River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1880-07-01
Ocean Basins

one result OF the Challenger expedi-
ton, DR. Carpenter declares in the
Nineteenth Century, is to necesitate flnda-
mental notifications in the views hith-
erto authoratively held as to the age,
depth and CONFORMATION of the present
ocean basins, 'sas they are usually call
ed 1t now seems that their shape is
not at all like basin, but is more like
that of tea-tray or waiter with steep
ly shopping rim; for it is a general fact
that continents, almost without excep-
ton, rise abruptly from the de-
pressed oceanic areas, and their bottoms
are as fiat MS the prairies From this fol-
lows a conclusion that our own dis
tinguished geologist, Professor Dana, was
right in the opinion, very early express
ed, if not originated by him, that the
elevated areas now forming continents
and the depressed areas of the present
ocean floors, were formed as such in the
first instance, and have remained I'M
changed in their general relations from
that time to the present. This conclusion
ii is not too much tosay, furnishes new
key to the history of the globe, and will
startle some geological Nestors. Sir
Charles Lyell, for instance, has said that
1.-THE bed of the ocean had been lifted
up the heighth of some of the loftiest
mountains and that every part of the
space now covered up by the deepest
ocean has been land (Chapter xii,
Principles ofGeology.(" How extreme
ly improbable such a geological see-saw
as this is appears more clearly from an
estimate, first mgde accurately possible
by the Challenger expedition of the re-
lative masses of land and sea. The av-
erage depth Of the ocean is $4,000 feet
the average height of the land above the
sea is 900 feet and the area of the sea
is about q that Of the land consequent
" the total volume of ocean is
(23x13) SO that of the land above the
sea level Therefore, says DR.. Carpenter
if Australia should subside to a deep sea
bottom level, and the necessary compen-
satory elevation should be confined to
corresponding area of existing land, it
would all rise in plateau to the height
of Mount Blame Otherwise, the total
land area would be raised far above its
known present height above the sea.
But there is no trace of anything like
such action, and the conclusion is that
the prevailing popular and scientific
notions on the subject are alike wrong
Another proof is found in the fact that
there are no land deposits found on
the mid-sea floor; indeed, it might al
most be said that nothing falls there, for
the silt gathers so slowly that the meteor
ic star-dust, which is utterly lost on the
surface of the land, forms an apprecia-
BILE part of the clay on the oceans bot
tom. The temperature soun1ings
brought out. this unexpected result
that the while body of oceanic water ex-
cept only in the North Atlantic basin,
averages in temperature very few de-
grees above 80 Fahrenheit The great
est depth of the ocean yet accurately
measured, as ascertained by sounding
while the Challenger was proceeding
due north to New Guinea to Japan, is
2G, $50 feet. Yet, in these utterly silent,
dark, freezing depths, where the pres
sure is four tons the square inch, are
found brilliantly colored organisms. If
inter-steller space ever fails in novelty
and suggestiveness, the ocean, now be-
ginning to he known, can scarcely fail to
give the needed flip to the jaded inn
agination of the poet of the future.