Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1915-07-16

Bosporus the great war is but
adding another chapter. for its
story runs back through the
centuries into the age of myth.
Concerning this strip of water that
separates the continents OF Europe
and Asia the National Geographic So
ciety says: One writer states that
there is perhaps no other locality in
the world surrounded by so many his
torical souvenirs and adorned with so
many varied gifts of nature; another
that God, man, nature and art have
together created and placed there the
most marvellous point of view which
the human eye can contemplate upon
earth; still another remarks that upon
this planet there is no other stream so
wonderful-that its equal can be
found, if at ALL only upon some other
star
DR.. Edwin A. Grosvenor remarks
that there is hardly a nation in the
civilized world whose blood has not
mingled with its waters; hardly a
faith, hardly heresy. which, by the
devotion of it's adherents and martyrs,
has not hallowed its banks Associa-
tons the most dissimilar, the most
incongruous, the most distant, elbow
one another in every hamlet and vii
lage. The German emperor, William
II, in 1889, disembarked at the same
spot which tradition makes the land
ing-place of that other leader, Jason,
III &c u, no cub fo,n
voyage of the fourteenth century be-
fore Christ.
Deep, Narrow and Swift.
The physical features of the Bos-
porus are described by the same
author in striking terms. He says that
in its swift flow it is a river, and in
its depth sea-yet many a sea is less
profound and many a river spreads
wider and has a less rapid current.
It's average depth is about SO feet At
no point in the channel is the depth
less than lat feet
So sharply do its submarine banks
descend that large vessels. hugging
the land too closely, though in deep
water, often run their bowsprits and
yards into houses on shore. The Strait
of Gibraltar, which wrests Africa from
Europe, is sixteen miles wide: even
the Dardanelles expands from one mile
to four But at it's widest the Bos
porus is only one and four-fifth miles
The length of the Bosporus is less
than seventeen miles. Each Asiatic
side indenture finds a convex bend on
the European side; each European bay
is met by an Asiatic promontory
Tradition goes back to a time when
countless ages ago, titanic forces here
rent Asia and Europe asunder; wher
the pentup, resistless waters of the
Black sea tore through valleys and
leveled mountains, in their sudden
southwark rush to the Mediterranean
The volcanic origin of the region con
firms this tradition.
Great Place for Fishing.
Seventy edible varieties of fish sport
in the waters of the Bosporus. They
are mostly migratory. The strait is
the only line of communication be
tween the Black sea and the Mediter
ranean, their summer and winter
homes. In their migrations countless
shoals succeed one another at inter
walls of days, and never did the mel
in the crows nest of a battleship scar
the horizon more earnestly for al
enemy than the lookouts for the fish
ermen peer into the deep for signs o
a fish migration. AS soon as the ad
vanced guard arrives signal is Civ
en-, and Immediately the Bosporus be
comes black with fishing boats. 81
regular are the fish in their habiti
and so unchanging in their ways, tina
Aristotle's account of their movement
penned twenty-five centuries ago, i
still an accurate description of the va
rieties and their migrations.
A hundred years ago Constantinopl
and the Bosporus hung in the balance
Doctor Grosvenor relates how, afte
the treaty of Tilsit, Emperor Alexar
der of Russia had insisted to Napoleol
upon the absolute necessity to hi
country of the possession of Constant
.nople. He declared there was no pric
SO great no condition so hard, tina
1t would not be gratefully accorded b
him for the city's acquisition. NapC
leon gazed in silence, earnestly an
long, at the map of Europe, of whic
he was at that moment the autocrati