Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-03-21
Written for The Evening Star.

! N " ton of mankind to map
out the deeps. with
| NMS their mountains val
IN leys and even streams.
- The mighty caves of
ocean have been to some extent surveyed, and
the very creatures that dwell in them have be-
come newly familiar to science.
| HOW OUR TERRITORY MIGHT BE ENLARGED.
| Ii the ocean waters should be affected by q
miraculously low tide, so as to sink by as much
as the height of the Washington monument. an
astonishing alteration would be made in the
| shape of the North American continent the
| line OF the Atlantic's breakers receding 30 far
| that New York city would find itself more than
| 100 miles from the sea, as would Boston like
| wise end Savannah. GA. 1t would be discovered
| that the present shore of the Atlantic is not
| the edge OF the continent Mt all. but that this
| edge is away out to the eastward SO that if il
| formed the coast, this country would be enough
! bigger to make room for four or five new
states. On the Pacific side it is quite other
wise. There the continents edge is marked
| pretty closely by the shore line. and so abrupt
/ and precipitous is it that enormous depths are
found close to land all along that coast. great
submarine valleys lying along the very margin
| Of terra firma.
AN IMAGINARY WALK on THE OCEANS FLOOR.
In starting to take q walk over the floor Of
the ocean perhaps it would be as much fun as
any other plan to set out from San Francisco
| for view Of the Pacifcs bed. For the first
twenty nine miles of the journey westward Won
VIII proceed over a level plateau formed Of
detritus. which the river water has cast ont
through the Golden Gate for thousand GEN.
turtles. The depth of the sen for that dis
lance Is only about 200 feet but at the end of it
the bottom drops suddenly to two and Il half
miles. To get to the foot of this tremendous
hill Is likely to be difficult, inasmuch as YOU
must climb from a tor ralat al md ,A
by much sleeper incline than that by which
| the traveller passes from the summit of the
Sierra Nevada range to the valley of California
below at Sacramento. As you go down you will
experience cold that becomes steadily more
| intense. and the pressure of water from above
which makes the cold. grasps you with such
nightly grip that your body would be crushed
to jelly in its fluid embrace, were you not
protected by armor of immense resisting power
Without such an equipment. as well AZ a store Of
air and a powerful light. there is no Use in your
attempting to explore the oceans abysses.
AN ISTERMISABLE PLAIN.
At the foot of the great declivity you will
find seemingly interminable plain. like a
prairie. 1t is the beginning of the floor of the
Pacific, which is for the most part 80 wonder
fully level that you could drive over it with the
utmost comfort in light carriage were the
water all taken away. As you proceed west
ward. though the slope is so smooth
and gradual that you do not notice it.
the bottom descends at slight incline until
at 500 miles from the land. the surface of the
ocean is three miles and a half above vou-
head This is the normal depth OF the vast
pacific plateau. You travel over it for another
500 miles when yon come upon a gigantic
mountain which towers up from the ocean
floor to the height of three miles, Its exist
ence has only been ascertained by soundings,
because half mile of sea water flows over it.
ADEAD LEVEL OF SHELLY ooz-.
Beyond the mountain is the plain again. 1t
is a dead level of shelly ooze such as covers
pretty much all of the ocean floor The
mixture. sometimes greenish and sometimes
brOwnish, is partly detritus washed BY rivers
from the land and partly shells of almost
microscopic animals called ''foraminfera"
which fall upon the bottom in a gentle and
continuous rain. All the chalk beds in the
world are formed of such shells and the very
stones of which the pyramids of Egypt were
buit are composed almost wholly of them.
There is certain monotony about the aspect
of things in these enormous depths.
One may well be oppressed too. by
| the absolute silence which reigns. Fright
ful storms may be raging on the sur
face. but here, three miles and a half beneath
all is still as death and not even the murmur of
| a wavelet reaches the ear. Everywhere il you
close your lantern. is the darkness OF absolute
black-a liquid darkness that makes itself felt
by pressure of two tons to the square inch.
Inc II 81 COlu 10 DE Nefv
little above freezing point. On every
side spreads desert of intermina-
BILE extent. frightful in its desolation with not
a blade or sprout of any sort--nothng. in fact,
but the shelly ooze into which your foot sinks
somewhat as you tread. Perchance there are
few sea lilies in your path. but you know that
they are animals and not of the vegetable ma
ture which they feebly counterfeit.
AMONG THE DEEP SEA MOUNTAINS.
You might follow the same dead level now
and then coming across an isolated elevation,
all the way across to Asia, l0,000 miles further,
if you liked. Instead you go southwest a
thousand miles until you come to a group of
tremendous volcanoes, rising precipitously
| from the bottom, whose tops are called
the Sandwich Islands. Thence 5000 miles
directly south and you find yourself
! entering portion Of the ocean plain that il
comparatively mountainous Many Of the
hills are tall enough to project out of the
water, thus making islands large and small.
You are exploring the subcellar Of Polynesia
| SO to speak. and you find, as you travel west
ward past the Society, Navigator, Friendly,
| Fiji and other groups, that the floor you are
walking on still preserves its depth and even
| ness, save where in spots vast shoals have been
| uplifted. of volcanic and corallne formation
| bearing such groups these in the shape Of
sugar loaf elevations high enough to supply
habitations for pan and incidental material for
missionary enterprise. 1t is believed by
A
| many more islands in the Southern Pacific than
there are now. and that they have disappeared
| owing to volcanic agency. Real estate in that
portion Of the world would not appear to be
| held Oh the most secure terms: it is always GO
ing down or coming up, mountain one day
being hole in the ground the next. or vice
| versa 1t only half dozen years ago that
peak two miles high rose in a single night out
Of the deepest part of the Strait Of Sunda, be-
| tween Java and Sumatra.
TO CHINA AND JAPAN.
You go no further south, because below the
fortieth parallel of latitude there are no islands
worth mentioning, and the ocean floor is
| nothing but level and uninteresting plain.
| The water shoaling steadily toward the pole
there Is like yshoaling toward the north pole.
so that the big icebergs in the arctic
and antarctic regions apt to
be found aground. Passing northward
along the deep valley which hugs the eastern
shore Of Australia, fringed with the most won-
derfu coral reefs in the world you keep on up
by the coast Of China until you reach the point
| a few hundred miles south Of Japan, where Ii
the only deep sea abyss known OF that has never
| been sounded. The las. attempt registered five
| and half miles and no bottom, because the
| apparatus broke. Other soundinRs have beef
made successfully, however, on the east O.
Japan, and it Is known that along the coast of
| those islands and close in shore runs the
| deepest chssm in all the Pacific ocean, and
| through this chasm rushcs tho great black
stream which corresponds to the Gulf stream
| Of the Atlantic.