Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1895-01-16
FLOOR OF THE PACIFIC
r rs THREE MILES FROM TEA
OCEANS SURFACE.
IN Taking Soundings for the Hawaiian
Cables Bed the Scientists Made
Interesting Discoveries.

! Cables Bed the Scientists Made
Interesting Discoveries.
TROFESSOR GEORGE DAVID.
| - son has completed 3 profile o.
| the cable route between Cali
| fornia and Hawaii, surveyed
| by the United States Fish Commis-
sion's steamer Albatross. The route
that the officials at Washington who
received the Albatross's reports Eeve
decided is most economical and avail
able, starts from Salinas Landing. in
Monterey Bay, where the deep Sa-
linas Valley continues out into the
ocean. This valley has steep descent
that will give the wire a resting place
335 fathoms (2100 feet below the sur
face two miles and a half after leaving
the landing place. After leaving Mon
terey Bay It takes 200 miles of west by
| south travelling to reach the floor OF
the Pacific, which averages about three
miles from the surface.
Some of the mountains on the big
| plain will compel detours when it
come to laying the cable, but not
| many of them. Mountains are not
| good for submarine cables. The rocks
| chafe and wear the coverings, and
cliffs and precipices and valleys leave
| loose lengths exposed for deniZens of
the sea to bite through or play with.
The biggest of these submarine
mountains found by the Albatross is
| little less than 600 miles from the coast.
If it were set up on dry land it would
put to blush the loftiest of the Sierra
| Nevadas, for it is over two and half
miles high, and yet its summit does
not come nearer than half a mile of
the surface of the water. There is an
other one two miles high within a
days run of Honolulu, but its summit
| is 5000 feet under water for all its
| mighty effort to reach the surface. At
| the southerly base of both these noun
tains the surveyors found deep beds of
| soft ooze Just fitted for the resting
place of cable, and it is in this direc-
ton that the detours around the un-
| friendly peaks will be made.
While the Albatross was surveying
| the cable route the scientists of her
crew went fishing. They tished in
all kinds of ways, from scooping
things on board from the surface to
| dragging them from the extreme
depths with travis, drags and dredges.
They fished for everthing-mud,r rocks,
coral, fish, crustaceans, animalcula,
worms, vegetable specimens, and, in
short, everything that could possibly
have habitat in the saline depths.
The catches showed that submarine
| cables have queer neigltoors. Some of
! them are big and some of them are
| little; some are pretty and some are
| hideous; some are friendly and some
! are harmful and spiteful, but all are
curious.
The apparatus used in sounding is
not the least interesting part of a sur
veying ships equipment, simple though
it is. The componest in use consists
of an old cannon shot suspended on
the eccentrieal bell crank principle.
Through the shot passes a cylinder
! with a valve at the bottom to permit
its receiving a portion of the deposit
of the oceans bed When the weight
is relieved the bell crank is tipped, the
shot slips off, end all that the line has
to haul up is the sounding cylinder
with its accumulated treasure.
Incidental to the surveying and fish
catching the Albatross scientists took
the temperature of the sea depths.
This was accomplished by thermometers
which could be fixed to register the
extremes of heat and cold they passed
through. Half mile below the sur
face the intense cold of the water
never changes, winter or summer. No
ray of sun ever penetrates such depths,
and the temperature Is but slightly
above freezing point at any time.
Strange to say, it does not change
much with an increase in depth of two
or three miles, and the ooze brought
up from the bottom, 10, 900 to 90, 900
feet down, does not show over a dozen
or twenty degrees more of cold than
the water three or four thousand feet
down.
There is no intermediate life to
speak Of, either. The abyssal animals,
as tho scientists call things that live
or the bottom, seem unable to exist
excep5 %nder a pressure of from four
or five thousand pounds to the square
inch, and they have to go down from
two and half to three miles to get
this. 1t is queer, that living in the
dark, as they do, some of them have
eyes and some have not. Those that
are given optics also run to extremes;
they either have tremendous protrud-
ing optics or such microscopical eyes
as to force the keenest search to dis
cover them. They are all carnivor-
Gus, each species feeding on the
species next in size down to the ami
malcule, which have no evidence to
give to their method of sustaining
life. No vegetable life grows in these
cold night-colored depths and the
scientists have no hesitation in pro-
nouncing anything that looks like a
plant an animal, no matter how flow
cry it may seem.
Down near Honolulu, where the wa
ter shoals, the temperature increases
at the bottom to seventy and eighty
degrees, and this is a problem the ca
BILE people must overcome. Such
heat is liable to interfere with the in
sulating properties of the ordinary
deep sea cable wrapping, SO that the
last end of the cable will have to be
constructed with rubber instead of
gutta percha 'tfiller." Stearine will
also enter into its composition, this
being designed to prevent galvanic
action between the inner copper wires
and the outside armor of iron.
Children who are puzzled to know
what becomes of shooting stars could
find an answer in the deep dredgings
of the Pacific. Away down, 1000 and
dredges find metallic and magnetic
spherules, which scientists have deter
mined to be of cosmic origin, the dust
of falling stars and meteorites. A
microscopic view of bit of the blue,
gray or green mud that the dredges
bring up tells of the existence of mil
lianS Of anirnals that haxa their homo