The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1890-10-22
MILES UNDER WATER.
A HALF HOURS STROLL ON THE FLOOR
or THE 0CsER,
Where Fierce Predatory Fishes Roam,
and TOrchligbt Professions 90 On
Nigh and Day Weird Scenes.

Nigh and Day. Weird Scenes.
What is it like at the bottom of the
sea-in the unfathomed depths, that is
to say five miles below the bottom of the
ocean?
If you mean to ask what is the aspect
of things on the ocean floor, so far down,
it is only possible to reply that there is
none. The darkness of that watery
abyss is as the blacklist of ink, no ray of
sunlight, even when the day is at it's
brightest, piercing the aqueous gloom
from above.
Even were there light you could
hardly make an observation, inasmuch
as the pressure of the superintendent
weight Of water is at least three tons to
the square inch, and would crush your
body like an egg shell into shapeless
mass.
But suppose, just for fun, that you
were able to descend five miles to the
ocean bottom at its greatest depth, and
survey your surroundings with the aid of
some brilliant artificial light
70 begin with, you gaze with curiosity
upon the ground beneath your feet. You
find that it is composed of grayish
mixture of minute shells and mud. The
shells are those Of little animals called
rhizopods, which live near the surface,
and dying, sink to the bottom thus paw
ing with their small tenements OF lime
the ocean floor. Everywhere this floor
is found composed of the same shelly
material, stretching for mile after mile
in every direction whichever way you
walk. The surface presents the same
sort of irregularities that mark dry
land. Here will be the hills, there val
leys, and perhaps you will come across a
great level plain, like western prairie.
But the likeness to terrestrial landscape
ends with the geographical contour
AN INrERMiNABLE DESERT.
What most impresscs you about this
strange scene is its frightiuI desolation.
where nothing grows. Not blade OF
sprout of any sort of vegetation is to be
discovered, for the simple reason that
there is no sunlight to support vegetable
life. Over the endless expanse of plain,
Hill and valley your eye wanders fruit
lessly in search of tree, shrub or even
seaweed There is nothing save the
graysh shelly ooze.
| Most dreadful of all is the silence of
the depths, absolute and unbroken by
sound of any sort, There is not oven
the sound of the sea. With five miles of
ink black ocean above you there is not
sven the murmur of wavelet to cheer
| ynur awful eoIita4Io- ---
And yet you are not alone, The great
| fishes that haunt the lowest abysses of
the ocean, ferocious and predatory be-
You'd all other fishes because they are
obliged to depend wholly upon each
other for food in the absence of yegeta-
ton, come fearlessly to gaze at you with
| SOSSlAi9 SAAttl uSUSL iStAS VI
the fishes of the depth. They have new
er seen man and are not afraid of you.
You are rather in luck if some Of them
do not attempt to eat you up, For in
stance, here comes a fish recently made
known to science as the ''black swallow
e." 1t is frequently accustomed to de-
YOUR fishes ten and twelve times as big as
itself, literally climbing over its victim,
first with one jaw and then with the 9th
er. Very often this extraordinary glut-
ton of the deep dies with indigestion in
consequences OF such meal, Now and
then there looms up before your alright
ed vision the form of some vast monster
with which humao knowledge has no act
uuaiptance because it inhabits the inky
! floods far down out OF observations
reach and it was too big to be caught and
drawn to the surface by the drodges of
II. NJ. S. Challenger, For all any one
can tell the ichthyosaurus and other gi-
gantic creatures antediluvian may haunt
these fatho mless realms of the ocean.
BLACK AND UNCANSY