§ 585-587. THE BASIN AND BED OF THE ATLANTIC. 3I7 



in tlie minds of men with regard to the question of a submarine 

 telegraph across the Atlantic. 



585. There is, at the bottom of this sea, between Cape Kace, in 

 The telegraphic Newfoundland, and Cape Clear, in Ireland, a re- 

 piateau. markablc steppe, which is already known as the tele- 

 graphic plateau, and has already been made famous by the attempts 

 to run a telegraphic cable across the ocean upon it. In August, 

 1858, a cable was laid upon it from Yalencia in Ireland to Trinity 

 Bay in Newfoundland, and a few messages were passed through 

 it, when it ceased to work. Whether messages can ever be suc- 

 cessfully sent, in a commercial sense, through such a length of con- 

 tinuous submarine wire, is by no means certain ; but that the 

 wires of 1858 so soon ceased to pass any current at all was no 

 doubt owing to the fact that the cable was constructed upon er- 

 roneous principles. Its projectors, in planning its construction, 

 did not, unfortunately, avail themselves of the light which our 

 deep-sea soundings had cast upon the bed of the ocean. 



586. It was upon this plateau that Brooke's sounding apparatus 

 The first specimens brou2;ht UD its first trophics froui the bottom of the 



of deep-sea sound- rni • ^ on ptt-wii- 



ings. sea. These specimens the omcers of the Dolpmn 



judged to be clay; but they took the precaution to label them, 

 carefully to preserve them, and, on their retnrn to the United 

 States, to send them to the proper bureau. . They were divided ; 

 a part was sent for examination to Professor Ehrenberg, of Ber- 

 lin, and a part to the late Professor Bailey, of West Point — em- 

 inent microscopists both. The latter thus responded : 



587. " I am greatly obliged to you for the deep soundings you 

 Bauey's letter, scut me last wcck, and I have looked at them with 



great interest. They are exactly what I have wanted to get hold 

 of The bottom of the ocean at the depth of more than two miles 

 I hardly hoped ever to have a chance of examining ; yet, thanks 

 to Brooke's contrivance, we have it clean and free from grease, so 

 that it can at once be put under the microscope. I was greatly 

 delighted to find that all these deep soundings are filled with mi- 

 croscopic shells; not a particle of sand or gravel exists in them. 

 They are chiefly made up of perfect little calcareous shells (Fora- 

 minifera), and contain, also, a number of silicious shells (Diato- 

 macese). It is not probable that these animals lived at the depths 

 where these shells are found, but I rather think that they inhabit 



