The Opelousas courier., 1891-06-06
IN THE OCEANS ABYSSES.
A SUBMARINE TRAMP FROM SAN
FRANCISCO TO NEW YORK.
What the Seas Floor Is Like-Mys-
terious Unfathomed Chasms-
Frightful Deep Sea Monsters.

Frightful Deep Sea Monsters.
Only a few years ago the bottoms of
the great seas Of the world were unknown
and unexplored, and the abysses beneath
their waters remained unfathomed. Such
soundings as were attempted were made
with ropes and crude apparatus, and
away from the shadows ono bottom.
was the record upon the charts. It re-
manned for the ingenuity of this genera
ton Of mankind to map out the deeps,
with their mountains, valleys and even
streams. The mighty caves of the ocean
have been to some extent surveyed,
and the very creatures that dwell in
them have become newly familiar to-
science.
! In starting to take a walk owe the
floor of the ocean perhaps it would be as
much fun as any other plan to set out
from San Francisco for a view of the
IPacifc's bed. For the first twenty-nine
miles of the journey westward you will
proceed owe a level plateau formed of
,detritus, which the river water has cast
out through the Golden Gate for a thou
sand centuries. The depth of the sea
for that distance is only about 200 feet,
but at the end of il the bottom drops
suddenly to two and a half miles. To
get to the foot of this tremendous hill is
likely to be difficult, inasmuch as you
must climb from a greater relative alti-
Itude and by a much sleeper incline than
that by which the traveller passes from
the summit of the Sierra Nevada range
Ito the valley of California below at Sac
ramento. AS you go down you will
Experience a cold that becomes steadily
more intense, and the pressure of water
from above, which makes the cold, grasps
you with such a mighty grip that your
body would be crushed to a jelly in its
fluid embrace were you not protected by
iarmor of immense resisting power. With
out such an equipment, as we'll as a store
of air and a powerful light, there is no
use in your attempting to explore the
oceans abysses.
At the foot of the great declivity you
will find a seemingly interminable plain,
like a prairie. 1t is the beginning of the
floor of the Pacific, which is for the most
part so wonderfully level that you could
drive over it with the utmost comfort.fn
a light carriage, were the water all taken
away. As you proceed westward, though
the slope is so smooth and gradual that
you do not notice it, the bottom descends
at a slight incline until, at 500 miles from
the land, the SURFACE of the ocean, is three
miles and a half al I'VE your head. This
lis the normal dept of the vast Pacific
plateau. You travel owe it for another
500 miles, when you come upon a gigan-
tic mountain which towers up from the
ocean floor to the height of three miles.
Its existence has only been .ascertained
lby soundings, because half a mile of sea
water flows over it.
You might follow the same dead level,
now and then coming across an isolated
elevation, all the way across to Asia, TO-
900 miles further, if you liked. Instead
you go southwest a thousand miles until
you come to a group of tremendous vol
rising precipitously from the bot
tom, whose tops are called the Sandwich
Islands. Thence 5000 miles directly
south and you find yourself entering a
portion of the ocean plain that is COM
Ip~aratiVely mountainous. Many of the
bills 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 Westward past the Society,
Navigator, Friendly, FIJI and other
that the floor you are walking on
still preserves its depth and evenness,
q v where in spots vast shoals have been
uplifted, of volcanic and coraline forma-
ton, bearing such groups as these in the
shaps of sugar loaf elevations high
enough to supply habitations for mar
and incidental material for missionary
enterprise. It is believed by biologists
that once upon a.time there were many
more islands in the Southern Pacific
than there are now, and that they have
disappeared owpg to volcanic agency.
It was only half a dozen years ago that a
peak two miles high rose in a single night
out of the deepest part of the Strait of
between Java and Sumatra.
You 60 no further south, because be.
below the fortieth parallel of lati-
tude there are no islands worth mention
ing, and the ocean floor is nothing but a
level anil undressing plain. Passing
along the deep valley which
hugs the eastern shore of Australia,
fringed with the most wonderful coral
reefs in the world, you keep on up by
the coast of China until you reach the
point, q few hundred miles south of
Japan, where is the only deep sea abyss
known of that has never been sounded.
The last attempt registered five and q
half miles and no bottom, because the
apparatus broke. Otsr soundings have
been made successfully, however, on the
east of Japan, and 1t is known that along
the coast of those islands and close in
shore runs the deepest chasm in all the
Pacific Ocean, and through this chasm
the great black stream which cor
responds to the Gulf Stream of the At
These tremendous depths literally TEEN
with life. There are multitudes of fishes
more ferocious Than any that are known
TO shallow waters-aII of them carnivor-
GUS because there is nothing vegetable
for them to eat, and they must prey upon
one another. Most of them have huge
eoggling eyes, with which they come and
gaze at you, having no fear, inasmuch 8
they have never seen man before. Their
ewes are SO big il order that they may
catch every possible ray of light. Il is