Our Salt-Jf\itcr JJ'orld 321 



was the discovery of this phitcau that laciHtated the 

 laying of the telegraph cables, and it is known in the 

 charts as Telegraph Plateau. As this elevated plain 

 approaches the British Isles, the water becomes com- 

 paratively shallow; nowhere in that vicinity is the depth 

 more than 400 feet. 



From the numerous islands that dot the Pacific 

 Ocean, one would be inclined to believe the waters in 

 their region to be somewhat shallow; but this is far 

 from w^hat is actually the case. The fact is that the 

 islands rise abruptly from very great depths, and some 

 of them are close to the deepest soundings that have 

 yet been made. In another chapter I have mentioned 

 the Philippine Deep as the deepest part of the ocean, 

 but there is another deep spot almost in the same region 

 which was famed for years as the greatest depression 

 in the earth's crust; this is the Tuscarora Deep, off the 

 coast of Japan, with a depth of slightly more than five 

 and one-fifth miles. 



So far as soundings have been able to determine, the 

 Indian Ocean contains no such deeps as have either the 

 Atlantic or Pacific, but there are vast expanses of its 

 floor forming an almost level plain at a depth of three 

 or more miles. The deepest known region is the Sunda 

 Trench, south of Java, where a sounding of nearly four 

 and one-third miles w^as made. 



Of the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, the latter is con- 

 ceded to be the deeper, although comparatively little 

 is known about either of them. North of Siberia, the 

 bed of the Arctic has a remarkably gentle slope, the 

 water in that region being less than 100 feet in depth 

 at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the 



