Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1883-08-29
Down In the Seattle Ship that Sinks
Eaten up by Fish.

described before the New York Acad-
envy of Sciences the physical and
geological character of the sea bot
tom off our coast, especially that
which lies beneath the Gulf stream.
He made 1900 observations last sum-
mer for the United States fish COM
missioners. He has cruised from
Labrador to Chesapeake bay and
about two hundred miles out to sea.
About sixty miles outside Of Nan
tucket is a streak of very cold water,
and animals dredged up are like those
caught in the waters of Greenland,
Spitzbergen, or Siberia. The water
is fifty fathoms deep, and the bed of
the ocean is Of clay. Bowlders weigh
ing 800 to 1000 pounds are dredged
up. Prof Verrill believes that they
are brought down by icebergs from the
Arctic regions and dropped when the
ice melts. The powders are found
as far south as Long Island. Further
out to sea, seventy to one hundred
and twenty miles south Of the south
eastern coast of New England, the
bottom of the sea, which has inclined
very gradually eastward, forming a
table land, takes sudden dip down.
ward, so that whereas the water on
of the bluff is 100 fathoms deep, at
the bottom of the basin it is / 900
fathoms deep. The slope is as high
and as steep as Mt. Washington, and
on its summit, which is level, diver,
could he 60 to so low a depth could
not put out his hand without touching
living creature. The bottom of the
sea is covered just there with a fauna
which has never been before found
outside of the Mediterranean sea, the
Gulf of Mexico, the Indies, or other
tropical regions. The number of spe-
cies of fish dredged up is 800, and
over half of them have never before
been seen by naturalists. Seventy
kinds of fish, ninety of crustacea, and
270 mollusks have been added to our
fauna. The age of many of the spec
linens shows that they must be per-
manent in that region. The trawl
let down from the ships by mile Of
rope brings up a ton of living and
dead crabs, shrimp, star-fsh, and as
the trawl simply scrapes over small
surface, the ocean-bed is plainly car
peted with creatures.
Sharks are seen by thousands in
this region, and countless dolphins,
but it seems strange that not fish
bone is ever dredged up. A piece Of
wood may be dredged up once year,
but it is honey-combed by the boring
shell-fsh, and falls to pieces at the
touch of the hand. This shows what
destruction is constantly going on in
these depths. If ship sinks at sea
with all OH board, it would be eaten
up by fish, with the exception of the
metal, and that would corrode and
disappear. Not bone of human
body would remain after a few
days. 1t is constant display of the
law of the survival of the fittest.
Nothing made by the hand of man
was dredged up after cruising for
months in the track of ocean vessels,
excepting coal clinkers showed over
board from steamships. Here Prof
Verrill corrected himself. Twenty
five miles from land he dredged up
an India rubber doll. That, he said,
was one thing the fish could not eat.
Here the Gulf stream is forty miles
further west than any map shows,
Prof Nerrill continued, and this
stream of warm water from the south
nourishes the tropical life near Massa-
chusetts. The temperature further
in shore is thirty-fve degrees in Au-
gust, OH the edge of the submarine
Mt. Washington fifty-two degrees, and
toward the bottom of the basin thir-
ty-nine degrees, while further out to
sea the temperature of the water
grows colder. On the surface the
jelly-fish, nautilus, and the Portuguese
man-ofwar, with other tropical fish,
are found. In this belt the tile-fsh,
about which so much was said a year
ago, were found in immense quanti-
ties, but this summer, although expe-
ditions have been made for the ex-
press purpose of catching some, not
one could be taken. Undoubtedly
they have been killed to fish by a
storm which carried the cold water
into the Gulf stream; indeed it is
known that cold current of water
resting on the oceans bed may con-
tain Arctic fish, and current of
warm water floating over it ON the
surface may be alive with tropical
fish.
AS to the quantity of light at the
bottom of the sea there has been
much dispute. Animals dredged from