Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-12-10
UNDER THE OCEAN.
Changes in the Sea Floor From Shore
to Shore.

A sketch of the landscape" of the
ocean bed is given by Dr. A. E. shipley
in an article in the Edinburgh Review:
1.-THE passengers and the crew OF liner
racing over the surface Of the Atlantic
are apt to imagine that under them is a
vast layer of water of varying depth
sparsely inhabited by few fish. As a
matter of fact the whole Of this great
ocean is teeming with life. II instead of
taking ship we could take to the water
and walk across the bed of the Atlantic
to America, starting from the shores of
western Europe, We should in effect be
travelling through a succession of new
countries. Not only would the surround
ing physical conditions vary as we ad-
vanced, but the animal and plant life
would vary in correlation with the al
tering physical conditions.
''Walking farther and farther toward
the depths of the Atlantic, we should
soon lose all sight of the algae, and the
shallow water fish--the place and sole,
whiting, skates, dogfish and others and
cod-would give way to the begrim anu
the hake. The sea floor would gradually
change from rock or gravel or stones to
sands and ultimately to mud or oozes of
various tints, their original colors often
modified by the action, of the decompo-
stion of organic particles in them and on
them. All these finer deposits are de-
rived from the neighboring land and
are blown seward by offshore winds or
washed down by rains and streams and
carried out to the sea by rivers.
1.-The distance to which fine matter In
suspension may be carried is very great.
The Kongo is said to carry its charac-
teristic mud as far out to sea as 600
far as 1000 miles.
Except in the neighborhoed of such
great rivers subaqueous traveller
would soon pass beyond what Sir John
Murray has called the mud line line
that limits the terrigenous deposits
everywhere surrounding dry land. Hav-
ing reached this limit. we must proceed
warily, for at the mud line, at an aver.
age depth of hundred fathoins. we shall
find ourselves at the edge Of the conti-
mental slope, a precipice more or less
abrupt and more or less high, descending
by steep declines or terraced cliffs until
''The Atlantic, compared with the other
great oceans, has an unusually large
area Of comparatively shallow water.
or Its total area 27.5 per cent. IL COW
cred by water less than 1000 fathoms
deep; IS per cent. lies between 1000 and
2ooo fathoms and AZ per cent. between
2Ooo or 5000 fathoms; the remaining rs
per cent Is still deeper
"At the foot of the continental slope
lies an illimitable plain of uniform
duh, grayish buff color, fiat and fea-
tureless as the desert, and only diversl-
fled by an occasional as yet uncovered
rock or wreck or the straight line of a
recently laid cable. This plain continues
with scarcely change in scenery or in
level until we approach the great mid
Atlantic ridge. AS Bruce has shown,
this, which roughly biseets the Atlantic,
extends from iceland as far south as
% degrees of south latitude, with a slight
and quite inexplicable break just under
the equator. The ridge runs almost
parallel with the eastern contour of
North and South America. which, in
turn. as the ordinary map will show,
roughly corresponds with the western
contour of Europe and Africa. From
time to time the ridge rises above the
surface of the water. as in the Azores
group. st. Pauls rocks, Ascension, iris
tan da Cunha and Cough island.
Having assembled the eastern and
descended the western slope OF this
mid-Atlantic ridge, we should again
traverse plains Of grayish ooze far more
extensive than any levei land tract
known to geographers, and AZ we APP
preached the American coast we should
gradually pass through, in reverse order,
the zones Of life traversed when leav-
ing Europe. On the eastern coast of
America the slope is much more grad
ual than on the western coast of south
ern Europe and Africa"