THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 588, 25 July 1873, Page 3

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

Our ever res' less men of science, having to a great extent exhausted other fields of discovery, and being ambitious to conquer new worlds, have lately turned their attention to the bottom of the sea, a wide area of research, for the ocean covers 1-10 million square miles of the surface of the globe. Till within the last few years little was known about the depths of the sea. It was supposed that no life could exist below a certain distance, owing to the enormous pressure, while the actual depth of the ocean was greatly overrated, owing to defective sounding instruments, whose plummets floated away horizontally, instead of descending vertically. The sev‘ ral scicntillc cruises which have been taken, have been undertaken for the purpose of attaining more accurate information on these topics. It was determined to dredge the bottom of the sea, to ascertain the limits to which animal life extended, and to test the temperature and composition of salt water at gicat depths. The results of these explorations may be thus broadly stated. The ideas once current as to the enormous depth of the ocean are fabulous, the average depth is two thousand fathoms, or about two miles, though there are local abysses, resembling inversely the mountains of the upper world, reaching perhaps to twice that distance. At evciy depth varying from 500 to 2,435 fathoms (the deepest cast made) animal life was found to be abundant.