The times., 1899-11-12
THE FLOOR OF TIE SEA
Terrific Heigh.s and Depths of the
Ocean.
An Awful Country to View If sud
denly Laid Bare-A Barren Land
the Dry Earth - Queer Theories
About Wrecks-The Lost Rivers.

est and curiosity in the aspect of a por-
tion of the earth's surface hitherto con
cealed from our gaze? The feeling is prob
ably universal, arising from the natural
desire TO penetrate the unknown, and also
from primitive anxiety to know what
sort of an abode the inhabitants of the wa
ter possess. since we almost always con
slider the water-folk to live as do the birds,
really on land with the water for an at
mosphere But if this curiosity be so gen.
eral with regard to the petty depths men
toned above how greatly is it increased
in respect to the recessss of the sea! For
there is truly the great unknown, the TN
discoverabIe country of which, in spite of
the constant efforts of deep-sea expedi-
tions we know next to nothing. Here i'm
agination may (and does) run riot, at
tempting the impossible task of repr0duc-
ing TO our minds the state of things in the
lightless, silent depths where life, accord
ing to our ideas of it. is impossible-the
true valley of the shadow of death.
Suppose that it were possible for some
convulsion 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 imaginatons of mankind Should
we be able to roam through those stupen-
dous halls, climb those towering temple
heights reared by the giants OF an elder
world, or gaze with stupefied wonder upon
the majestic ruins of cities to which Baby
lon or Palmyra with all their mountainous
edifices were but as a suburban town ct?
Who knows? Yet maybe the natural wol-
deTs apparent in the foundations of such
soaring masses as the Azores, the Cape
Verde Islands, or the CanaTies; or greater
still, the altitude of such remote and
lonely pinnacles as those of the st. Pau s
Rocks. would strike us as more marvellous
yet To thread the cool intTicaCies OF the
still veXt BermoOtheS' at their Easements
and seek out the caves where the sea mon
sJeTs dwell who never saw the light OF day,
to wander at viii among the
windings OF that strange maze OF
reefs that cramp up the out
pouring Of the benefcent Gulf Stream
and make it issue from its source with
that turbulent energy that carries it, la
den with blessings, to our shores-what
pilgrimage that would be! Imagine the
vision of that great chain of islands viii
we call the West Indies soaring up Fl ON
the vast plain 5000 feet below, with all
the diversity of form and color belonging
t1 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,
lhis suddenly exposed floor of the sea. A
barren land of weird outline. of almost
unimaginable compleXity of contour, but
without any beauty such as is bestowed
upon the dry earth by the kindly sun. For
It's beauty depends upon the sea, whose
prolific waters are peopled with life so
Rbundantly 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 there is little life. The most
that goes on there is a steady accumula-
lion of the dead husks of once living or
ganisms, settling slowly down to form v no
knows what new GRANTEES, marbles, Ior-
phyries, against the time when another
race on reorganized earth shall need
them. Here there is nothing fanciful, 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 unreaIized periods of time for
the use and enjoyment Of its present lords.
\ Queer Theory About Wrecks.
Not until we leave the rayless gloom,
the incalculable pressures and universal
( cold Of those tremendous depths do we
+ lind the sea floor beginning TO abound with
( life II may even be doubted whether any
thing of mans handiwOrk, such as there
is about a ship laundering in mid-Ocean,
would ever reach in a recognizable form.
the bottom Of the sea at depth of more
than . 1000 fathOms. There is an idea popu-
larly current among seafarers that sunken
ships in the deep sea only 90 down TO
/ certain distance, no matter what their
build or how ponderous their cargo Hay-
( ing reached certain stratum they then
/ drift about, slowly dsintegrating, derelicts
/ of the depths, sWarming with strange dem
liens. the shadowy fleets of the loved and
[ lost and mourned In time, of course,
/ they disappear, becoming part of their sur
roundings, but not for hundreds Of years,
/ during which they pass and repass at the
will Of the undercurrents 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 81
lent depths about which it is formulated.
In his marvelousIy penetratiye way, Kip
ling has touched this theme while singing
The Song of the English"
The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops
| down from aiar-
! Down 10 the dark. the utter dark, where the
blind white sessnakes
| There Is no sound, no echo OF sounnd, IN the
deserts OF the deep,
On the great gray level plains OF oozc where the
| shell-buTed cables creep.
Here in the womb Of the world-here ON the tie
ribs OF earth,
Words. and the words OF men, flicker and futter
and beat
Warning, sorrow and gain salutation and mirth
For Power troubles the Still that has neither
voice or feet.
Surely the Imagination must be dead, in
deed, that does uoy throb responsive to the
thought Of that latter-day workmanship of
wire and rubber descending at the Will of
man into the vast void, and running its di-
! rect course over mountain ranges, across
sudden abysses Of lower depth, through the
turbulence of upbursting submarine tor
! rents where long pent-up rivers compel the
| superintendent ocean TO admit their salt
less waters; until from continent 10 conti-
nent the connection is made. and man holds
converse with man at his ease as though
| distance were not. Recent Investigations
60 to prove that among the causes that
make for destruction of those communt-
eating cables are the upheavals of lost
! rivers. In spite of the protection that
scientific invention has provided for the
central core of conducting wire, these ir-
resistible outbursts of undersea torrents
rend and destroy it, causing endless labor
of replacement by the never-resting cable
| ships But this is only one of the many
| deeply interesting features Of oceanography,
| a science of comparatively recent growth,
| but full of gigantic possibilities for the ru-
| ture knowledge of this planet The re-