Hamilton. — On our Knowledge of the Oceanic Areas. 175 



to have slumbered again till the latter half of the eighteenth 

 century, when the first of the memorable scientific voyages 

 was initiated in the time of James Cook. 



We must, however, not forget the expedition of Edward 

 Halley, in 1699, to improve our knowledge concerning longi- 

 tude and the variation of the compass : this was a purely 

 scientific voyage. Of the geographical discoveries made since 

 that time in these seas we have been favoured with several 

 papers by Dr. idocken, and it will therefore be permissible 

 for me to pass on to the Victorian era, and the rapid 

 increase in the scientific knowledge of the bed of the great 

 ocean — a branch of oceanography bttt newly born. It may 

 here be not out of place to remind you that the very bulk 

 of the ocean as compared with the visible land gives it an 

 importance which is possessed by no other feature on the 

 surface of. our planet. 



Dr. John Murray has lately, after a laborious calcula- 

 tion from the most recent data, shown that the cubical con- 

 tents of the ocean is probably about fourteen times that of the 

 dry land. This statement appeals strongly to the imagina- 

 tion, and forms perhaps the most powerful argument in 

 favour of the view — steadily gaining ground — that the great 

 oceans have, in the main, existed in their present form since 

 the continents settled down into their present form. When it 

 is considered that the whole of the dry land would only fill up 

 one-third of the Atlantic Ocean, the enormous disproportion 

 of the two great divisions of sea and land become very appa- 

 rent. The deepest parts of- the ocean at present known are in 

 all cases near lau;!: at 110 miles outside the Kurile Islands 

 the deepest sounding has been made, of 27,930ft.''' The sea 

 ■ with the greatest mean depth appears to be our vast Pacific, 

 which covers 67 millions of the 188 millions of square miles 

 comprising the earth's surface. Of the 188 millions, 137 

 millions are sea, so that the Pacific comprises just one-half 

 of the water of the globe, and more than one-third of its 

 whole area. W^e cannot regard the soundings which have 

 been taken by the various scientific expeditions, and which 

 are still being taken as opportunities offer, as anything but the 

 units of what is required. In the Central Pacific there is an 

 area of 10|^ million square miles in which there are only 

 seven soundings ; while in a long strip crossing the whole 

 North Pacific, which has an area of nearly 3 million square 

 miles, there is no sounding at all. The immensity of the mass 

 of waters in the Pacific, both in bulk and area, is difiictilt to 

 realise, but it may assist us when we learn that the whole of 



*0nthel4tli December, 1895, H.M.S. "Penguin" reports a sound- 

 ing of 29,400ft., at which depth the sounding- wire snapped. 



