Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1920-07-28
MOUNTAIN IN SEA
Summit Known as Laura Ethel Is
the Highest.
Twenty Thousand Feet Above the
Lowest Level of the Atlantic Basin
Approximate Location Of
"Davy Jones' Locker"

At the captains table on an Atlantic
liner a young woman idly inquired how
far the ship was from the nearest
land. Several passengers would have
said Offhand, about eight hundred
miles" But the captain turned the
question over to quiet gentleman who
looked at his watch and at chart and
amazed his hearers by answering,
"Jpst about seventy yards"
"The land speak Of is just thirty
six fathoms beneath this ship" con-
tinued the expert oceanographer. ut
is, the summit of the Laura Ethel
mountain, which Is 10000 feet above
the lowest level of the Atlantic basin.
If it were some two hundred feet high
err, or the sea were two hundred feet
lower, you would call it an island.
In effect, the Atlantic is huge con-
tinent Boosting superficial area of
25,000,000 square miles. 1t is 5000
miles long and 200 miles broad. The
depth of the water that covers it is
by no means so considerable as people
used 10 imagine. OceanOgraphy as
a science may be said to date only
from about 1850 but-thanks chiefly
to the labors of the cable-laying and
cable-repairing ships-Our knowledge
of the configuration of the bed of the
ocean grows greater every year.
The Laura Ethel mountain, discover
ed in 1878, is the uppermost peak Of
one of the most celebrated of the sub
marine elevations in the Atlantic.
Mount Chaucer, at the eastward of
ii, was revealed to oceanographers in
1850 Sainthill, which is westward Of
both, has the honor to be the first
mountain discovered in the Atlantic.
It became known in 1882.
Prior to the laying of the first At
lantic cable Lieutenant Maury, United
States navy, made it known that a
wide plateau exists beneath the ocean,
running from Ireland to Newfound-
land. 1t seemed so admirably suited
to the purpose of cable laying that he
modestly called it Telegraphic plateau,
but in most charts il bears the discOv-
ers name.
The location of "Davy Jones' Lock-
er" might be said 10 have been estab-
llshed with the discovery of Sainthill.
1t has been estimated that at the base
of this eminence the relics of not few
er than seven thousand wrecks lie
scattered. Or one might ascribe that
grewsome distinction to the Faraday
hills, discovered in 1888 and lying be-
tween Mount Chaucer and Laura
Ethel mountain. These hills are noted
among oceanographers for the amount
of wreckage Of which they are tnH
monument.
There are cavernous depths, CT
course, in the Atlantic, as well as ma
jestic heights. -Four miles and half
may be taken to be the greatest. The
average is probably about two miles.
Heights and depths alike are merely
hidden land, which may some day be
exposed by the mighty workings Of ma
ture.
Meantime comparatively few changes
occur. Beneath the ocean there are no
frOsts, no lightnings, no glaciers, no me-
neurological agents at work. If it were
not for the eddies and the destruction
and accumulation of animal life, these
Atlantic hills and wales might rest as
immutable as the peaks and craters of
the moon, where there is no atmos-
phere TO cause decay.