Evening star., 1925-08-04
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
By PAUL ]. COLLINS.

The ArCturuS has returned from its
voyage To discover the Sargasso Sea
and the Humboldt Current The most
astonishing thing in its report is that.
like "Margerie Daw' of fiction. there
ain't no Sargasso Sea. nor any Hum
boIdt Current" AT least. that ap-
pears 10 he the conclusion of Capt
William Beebe after his 20 .O0e- mile
voyage in search of the wonders of
the deep.
His skepticism concerning the Sar
gasso Sea-an eXpanse of plants
which entanGled ships and retarded
Columbus in his search for Cathay-
is as nothing compared with the
skepticism of the beholders of the
strange monsters of the deep which
he brought home with him. Specta-
tors gaze upon the lightning bugs as
big as horses and vow that they are
so incredible that there "ain't no such
animile" any more than there are live
giraffes, in the opinion of the funda-
mentalist, who saw one for the first
time.
Yet why should il be thought
thing incredible that Capt. Beebe
should have fished in the depths and
brought up inhabitants unlike the fsh
of the surface waters? The oceans
the globe. but it is within the memory
of men still living that the first sys-
tematic study of oceanography was
begun by the voyage of the Chal-
lenger in 1873.
Mankind has long studied the re
sources and wonders of the three
tenths of the world covered by land
with its forests, mountains, plains,
rivers and deserts. We are Just be-
- ~ I, on
tenths under water also have their
wonders-their mountain ranges. their
valleys and plains, their deserts and
their vast regions over which the
God-giyen mama which we call
| "plankton." rains down to feed the
multitudes. which, like the wandering
children of Israel. would otherwise be
doomed to starvation.
Science is prone to discredit the un-
demonstrated. 1t is rare to find a
scientist TODAY who credits the myth
| ical tale of the lost Atlantis-a con-
tinent which is said to have existed in
the Atlantic Ocean. between the Strait
| of Gibraltar and the Gulf OF Mexico,
and where there fiourished a great
empire with its millions OF people
| highly civilized. An earthquake sWal-
! lowed up the continent and all It's
| wealth and all its people-but sclen-
| lists disbelieve that it ever existed.
Perhaps it was the fruit of imaeina-
ton of some principal reciter' whose
| business it was to relate strange
| things" to the ancient Pharaohs of
Egypt, for the Egyptians deprecated
| the wisdom of Solon, who had never
| heard of Atlantis and its great catas
| trophe.
Imagina ton often outruns the con.
| servative scientist. just as il did in
| the case of Jules Verne, with his sub
marine ship, which travelled 10000
| leag CUES under the sea with far greater
| range and more luxuries than any
| constructed by Datid Bushnell or Rob
| ert Fulton or any of their more mod
ern successors.
just beyond the mouth of the Hud-
| son River Capt. Beebe explored the
region of what had once been the
! Hudson River Falls--four times as
I high as the falls of Niagara. and he
SAYS that 100000 years ago that
| was the greatest waterfall in the
world being $50 feet high. Even there,
so close to the Great White Way of
| Broadway. he caught fish which car
ried within their bodies from 500 to
| 5000 individual lights, making their
paths through the dark unfathomed
caves of ocean" as brilliant as Broad
way in its gayest hours. This is but
as a foretaste of the wonder tales
which we may look forward TO within
| the next. few months, when the scien-
| fists will tell the public the true re-
citals of strange things"
| We are often assured that truth is
F., stranger than fiction. Science is
| truth-not scientific theory but real
science. Science is also characterized
as being extremely dry so let it
! exercise its dryness by imaginatively
| drying up all the oceans, to let us pic
ture the landscapes" beneath the
waves of today.
| X
In the Himalaya Mountains of Asia
| there is one peak so high that man
has never been slsie to ascend to the