The ocean world : being a descriptive history of the sea and its living inhabitants / Chiefly translated from "La vie et les moeurs des animaux".

  • Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ocean world : being a descriptive history of the sea and its living inhabitants / Chiefly translated from "La vie et les moeurs des animaux". Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The greatest depth at which the bottom has been reached with this plummet is in the North Atlantic between the parallels of thirty-five and forty degrees north, and immediately south of the great bank of rocks off Newfoundland. This does not appear to be more than twenty-five thousand feet deep. “ The basin of the Atlantic,” says Maury, “ according to the deep sea soundings in the accompanying diagram, is a long trough separating the Old World from the New, and extending, probably, from pole to pole. In breadth, it contrasts strongly with the Pacific Ocean. From the top of Chimborazo to the bottom of the Atlantic, at the deepest place yet reached by the plummet in that ocean, the distance in a vertical line is nine miles.” “ Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea gash which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic Seas, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing ; the very ribs of the solid earth with the foundations of the sea would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us in one view, in the empty cradle of the ocean, ‘ a thousand fearful wrecks,’ with the array of ‘ dead men’s skulls, great anchors, heaps of pearls, and inestimable stones,’ which, hi the poet’s eye, lie scattered on the bottom of the sea, making it hideous with the sight of ugly death.” The depth of the Mediterranean is comparatively inconsiderable. Between Gibraltar and Ceuta, Captain Smith estimates the depth at about five thousand seven hundred feet, and from one to thiee thousand in the narrower parts of the straits. Near Nice, Saussure found bottom at three thousand two hundred and fifty. It is said that the bottom is shallower in the Adriatic, and does not exceed a hundred and forty feet between the coast of Dalmatia and the mouths of the Po. The Baltic Sea is remarkable for its shallow waters, its maximum rarely exceeding six hundred teet. It' thus appears that the sea has similar inequalities to those observed on land ; it has its mountains, valleys, hills, and plains. The Deep Sea Sounding Apparatus of Lieutenant Brooke has already furnished some very remarkable results. Aided by it, Di. Maury has constructed his fine orographic map of the basin of the Atlantic, which is probably as exact as the maps which represent Africa 01 Australia.