The SiTXKEX Laxd of Bus (lat. 35 west, long. 58 north). — By 

 Henrv S. Poole, D. Sc, A. R. S. M., F. G. S.. F. R. S. C, 

 Halifax. 



(Read nth April, I'.m. J 



In latitude 53°, longitude 35°, the " Atlantic Ocean Pilot " 

 notes a reported shoal, styling it " The Sunken Land of Bus," 

 but gives no further information on the matter. It does not 

 say whence the information, so laconically entered, was obtained. 

 It does not tell us who Bus was, whether he was a Dutch 

 navigator or related to the monk, Caesar de Bus, of note in the 

 sixteenth century. All the reference books to which I have 

 access are silent on the subject. But, in that locality, recent 

 investigations have proved the presence of shallower waters 

 than those about it, if not of a shoal, in the usual acceptation 

 of the term. 



Through the kindness of Gapt. DeGarteret, of the cable ship 

 " Minia," I am able to present a record of soundings taken mid- 

 way between Newfoundland and Ireland in June and July, 

 1903. The region is near, or po.ssibly was even crossed, by the 

 line of soundings obtained by Capt. McClintock for the first 

 Atlantic cable in 1857. 



The present series has disclosed the existence of a mountain- 

 ous district in a locality where ocean's depths were assumed, 

 from McClintock's infrequent soundings, to be those of a fairly 

 level plateau with its shallowest waters 1550 fathoms. 



The location of the region reviewed is accurately shown en 

 the accompanying chart on a scale of six knots to five inches. 

 The chart was kindly prepared by Mr. J. Adams, first officer 

 of the S. S. " Minia." 



As we are a maritime people, with a large proportion of our 

 population directly interested in all that relates to the ocean at 



(193) 



