The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-11-13
THE FLOOR OF THE SEA.
Terrific Ocean Heights and Depths.

of portion of the earth's surface hith-
erto concealed from our gaze? The feel
ing is probably universal, arising from
the natural desire to penetrate the UNI
known, and also from primitive
anxiety to know what sort of an abode
the inhabitants of the water possess,
since we almost always consider the
waterfolk to live as do the birds, really
on land with the water for an atmos-
phere. But if this curiosity be so gene
raj with regard to the petty depths
mentioned above, how greatly is it in
creased in respect to the recesses of the
seal For there is truly the great I'M
known, the understandable country Of
which, in spite of the constant efforts
of deep-sea expeditions, we know next
to nothing. Here imagination Maryland
does) run riot, attempting the impos-
sibe task Of reproducing to our minds
the state of things in the lightless, ST
lent depths where life, according to our
ideas of it, is impossible-the true valley
of the shadow of death.
Suppose that it was possible for some
CONFUSION of Nature to lay bare, let us
say, the entire bed Of the North Atlantic
Ocean. With one bound the fancy leaps
at the prospect of a rediscovery of the
lost continent, the tabled Atlantis,
whose wonders have had so powerful an
effect upon the imaginations of man
kind. Should we be able to roam
through those stupendous halls, climb
those towering temple heights reared by
the giants of an elder world, or gaze
with stupefed wonder upon the~najes-
tic ruins of cities to which Babylon or
Palmyra with all the mountainous edi-
fees We're but as a suburban townlet?
Who knows? Yet maybe the natural
wonders apparent in the foundations
of such soaring masses as the Azores,
the Cape Verde Islands, or the Canaries;
or, greater still, the altitude of such re-
mote and lonely pinnacles as those of
the ST. Paul's Rocks, would strike us as
more marvellous yet To thread the cool
intricacies of the still vext Bermooth-
es" at their easements ana seek out the
caves where the sea monsters DWELL who
never saw the light Of day. to wander at
will among the windings of that strange
maze of reefs that cramp UP the out
pouring of the benefcient Gulf Stream
and make it issue from it's source with
that turbulent energy that carries it,
a pilgrimage that would be! imagine the
vision of that great chain of islands
which we call the West Indies soaring
up from the vast plain 5000 feet below
with all the diversity of form and color
belonging to the lovely homes of the
coral insects, who build ceaselessly for
themselves, yet all unconsciously rear
stable abodes for mankind.
1t would be an awful country to view,
this suddenly exposed floor of the sea.
A barren land of weird outline, of al
most unimaginable complexity Of con-
tour but without any beauty such as
is bestowed upon the dry earth by the
kindly sun. For it's beauty depends up
on the sea, whose prolific waters are
peopled with life so abundantly that
even the teeming earth is barren as
compared with the ocean. But at its
greatest depths all the researches that |
man has been able to prosecute go to |
prove. that thehe is little life. The most |
that goes on there is a steady accumu- |
lation of the dead husks of once living |
organisms settling slowly down to form |
who knows what new GRANTEES, marbles, |
porphyries, against the time when an
other race on reorganiZed earth shall |
need them. Here there is nothing fanci- |
full for if we know anything at all Of !
prehistoric times, it Is that what is now |
high land, not to say merely dry land, |
was once lying cold and dormant at the |
bottom of the sea, being prepared |
throughout-who can say what unreal |
liable periods of time for the use and |
enjoyment of its present lords.
Not until we leave the rayless gloom,
the incalculable pressures and universal |
cold Of those tremendous depths do we
find the sea floor beginning to abound
with life 1t may be even doubted !
whether anything of mans handlwork,
such as there is about ship laundering
In midocean, would ever reach a recog-
nizable form the bottom of the sea at
depth of more than two thousand faith
ons There is an idea popularity cur
rent among seafarers that sunken ships
In the deep sea only go down a certain
distance, no matter what their build or
how ponderous their cargo. Having
reached a certain stratum, they then
drift about, slowly disintegrating, dere-
licts of the depths, swarming with
strange denizens, the shadowy fleets of
the loved and lost and mourned. In |
time, of course, as the great solvent
gets in his work they disappear, becom-
ing part of their surroundings, but not
for hundreds of years, during which
they pass and repass at the will of the
that everywhere keep the
whole body of water in the ocean from
becoming stagnant and death dealing to
adjacent shores. A weird fancy truly,
but surely not more strange than the
silent depths about which it is formu
ated
In his marvellously penetrative way,
Kipling has touched this theme while
singing 1.-THE Song of the English:
rhe wrecks dissolve above us; their dust |
drops down far afar
Down to the dark, the utter dark, where
the blind white seasnakes are.
There Is no sound, no echo of sound, in
the deserts of the deep,
On the great gray level plains of ooze
where the shel-burred cables creep :
Jere in the womb of the word--here on c
the tie ribs of earth, l
Words, and the words of men, flicker $
and futter and beat
Warming. sorrow and gain, saluta ton {
and mlrth-
Cor a Power troubles the Still that has
neither voice or feet.
4. 4 4 &