The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-06-26
OCEANS DEEPEST SPOT.
Over Five Miles Deep at One Point
Just Located.

The deepest spot in the ocean has
been found. More than five. miles of
wire ran out without the bottom being
reached. Then the wire broke. This
spot was discovered by the surveying
ship Penguin, near the Friendly Islands
/ in the South Pacific. Commander Bal
four of that ship reports that this re
| markable discovery was made IN latl-
! tude 234C south, longitude 1910 west.
When he first discovered this eXtraor-
! binary hole, which so far as we Know
now is bottomless, Captain Balfour at
attempted to take the depth and the
| sounding line was run out.
After 1900 fathoms had run out over
| the side of the ship, the wire broke, and
! a rising sea and wind prevented any
| further attempt of the kind being
made. On the second attempt he man
aged to pass 1900 fathoms, or 29,4OO
| feet of the wire over the ships side
! before the wire broke and put an end
! to the experiment
| The deepest spot in the ocean pre-
viously known was close to the coast
of Japan. where a sounding had been
made of 1855 fathoms. This is 240 faith
oms, or more than 1,400 feet shallower
than the deep hole which has now been
discovered.
HOW MUCH OeepeI II SOCo lii1ii h''''
fathoms no man can know. 1t is a
piece of water more than five miles
deep. What the pressure must be at
the bottom no scientist has yet been
bold enough to conjecture.
There is no glass instrument that
could resist this pressure. 1t would
be impossible with the most improved
scientific appliances to take the tenn
perature al this enormous depth.
No living thing known to science
could exist at a. depth so great as
this where the pressure must be equal
to many hundred or thousand foot
tons, sufficient to squeeze the life out
of any fish. Even brass and iron IN
struments lowered to this enormous
depth would be twisted and distorted.
The most painstaking work in lower
ing a piano wire to sound depth such
as this will not suffice to keep it from
breaking This is because of the frlc-
ticn of the water against the wire.
In spite of every appliance of balance
and spring in the machinery on decK.
designed TO counterfeit the motion OF
the vessel. the increase and decrease OF
pressure caused by rising and railing
on a wave will snap the strongest wire
when it has been lowered TO so -reat
a distance.
All of the water at the bottom must
support the weight of the water on
tcp of it. The consequence IS tna. III
water in the lowest depths is com
PRESSED under enormous pressure.
The theory has been advanced mat
some strange unknown creatures may
live in this highly compressed water
There may be fish Of a kind so peculiar
that they cannot exist closer TO ire
surface. where the water is thinner ana
the pressure less.
Through countless ages of HVlnS IN
the darkest. deepest depths OF OCEAN
these fish may have evolved forms and
natures unknown to men of science, be
cause hitherto such vast depths nave
been unexpIored. What the bottom OF
such a place may be like is only mat
ter of conjecture.
IT may support q fauna and fora OF
its own. It may have its own plant ara
animal life, which some daring seen
fist will bring to light to astonish AID
amaze the scientific world.
Here. where there can be no light, the
fish. if fish there be, must be eYe-cSs,
like that queer breed OF fish when
Darwin cited existing in the rivers OF
the Mammoth Cave put stlli, under the
scalpel of the scientist disclosing what
is known in biology as "rudimertary
eve" The fishes of these deepest depths
may have rUdimentary eyes ana fCoi-
I,entary lungs.
They may have been pressed hard
and fiat like a pancake by the encr-
nous weight of the water above them,
ard may, indeed, move about by
method as strange and curious as was
that of the kangaroo when-first brought
to the attention of Europe. These are
questions Cor the scientific world to
solve. They have been brought to the
front by the discovery of the Penguin
of a spot in the ocean deeper than any
that has been known hitherto.