NEARLY A MONTH UNDER SEA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 46, 6 November 1946, Page 3

NEARLY A MONTH UNDER SEA

MAPPING OCEAN BED

SCIENTISTS’ 4000-MILE VOYAGE

Professor B. C. Browne and the submarine Tudor rode into Portland harbour after a 4000-mile voyage as strange and fascinating as any made by Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo in the Nautilus. For 28 days the submarine rarely left the ocean bed.

With three scientists on board, the Tudor crept through the hills and valleys under the sea from the Bay of Biscay almost to the Shetlands. The scientists combed the sea bed for gold and oil fields—and found long-submerged hills which once linked England to the Continent or formed part of Ireland. As the Tudor dropped anchor Professor Browne, leader of the expedition, confessed it had been “an interesting and successful voyage.” “We have sailed 3805 miles,” he said. “Our first call was at the ‘dustbin’ of Europe, which lies at the southern entrance to the English Channel.

“Here we plotted the bed of the ocean 500 miles into the Atlantic, where the Continental shelf drops 2j> miles to the bed of the ocean and mountains rear themselves more than 5000 feet high in the water.

“For the first time the scientists were able to trace the formation of the land which linked England to

France and Spain in the pre-ice Age. “Next we sailed into the Bay of Biscay,” Professor Browne continued. “We went within four miles of the coast of Spain.” They plotted the hills and the valleys of the ocean towards the Irish coast and found evidence that the Porcupine, the underwater mountain, once formed part of Ireland.