Gilpin observer., 1915-04-15


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 nation in the
civilized world whose blood has not
mingled with its waters; hardly
faith, hardly a heresy. which, by the
devotion of it's adherents and martyrs,
has not hallowed it's banks. Associa-
tions 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,
with his Argonauts in that sublime
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 it's swift flow it is a river, and in
its depth sea-yet many sea is less
profound and many a river spreads
wider and has less rapid current.
Its 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 its 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; when
the pent-up. 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 men
In the crows nest of battleship scan
the horizon more earnestly for an
enemy than the lookouts for the ish-
ermen peer into the deep for signs OF
fish migration. AS soon as the ad-
vanced guard arrives. a signal is CIV
en-. and Immediately the Bosporus be-
comes black with fishing boats. So
regular are the fish in their habits
and so unchanging in their ways, that
Aristotle's account of their movements
penned twenty-five centuries ago. is
still an accurate description of the va.
rieties and their migrations.
A hundred years ago Constantinople
and the Bosporus hung in the balance.
Doctor Grosvenor relates how, after
the treaty of Tilsit. Emperor Alexan-
der OF Russia had insisted to Napoleon
upon the absolute necessity to his
country OF the possession of CONSTANT
nople. He declared there was no price
so great. no condition so hard. that
It would not be gratefully accorded by
him for the city's acquisition Napo-
leon gazed in silence. earnestly and
long. at the map Of Europe, OF which
be vas a. that moment the autocratic