THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN. 307 



interval, to determine the depth. This plan would afford no 

 specimens of the bottom, and its adoption was opposed by other 

 obstacles. One gentleman proposed to use the magnetic tele- 

 graph. The wire properly coated, was to be laid up in the 

 sounding-line, and to the plummet was attached machinery, so 

 contrived that on the increase of every 100 fathoms, and by means 

 of the additional pressure the circuit would be restored, some- 

 what after the manner of Dr. Locke's electro-chronograph, and a 

 message would come up to tell how many hundred fathoms up 

 and down the plummet had sunk. As beautiful as this idea was, 

 it was not simple enough in practical application to answer our 

 purposes. 



564. Physical problems more difficult than that of measuring the 

 depth of the sea have been accomplished. — Greater difficulties than 

 any presented by the problem of deep-sea soundings had been 

 overcome in other departments of physical research. These plans 

 and attempts served to encourage, nor were they fruitless, thouo-h 

 they proved barren of practical results. Astronomers had mea- 

 sured the volumes and weighed the masses of the most distant 

 planets, and increased thereby the stock of human knowledge. 

 Was it creditable to the age that the depths of the sea should 

 remain in the category of an unsolved problem ? Its " ooze and 

 bottom " was a sealed volume, rich with ancient and eloquent 

 legends, and suggestive of many an instructive lesson that might 

 be useful and profitable to man. The seal which covered it was 

 of rolling waves many thousand feet in thickness. Could it not 

 be broken ? Curiosity had always been great, jet neither the 

 enterprise nor the ingenuity of man had as yet proved itself equal 

 to the task. No one had succeeded in penetrating and bringing 

 up from beyond the depth of two or three hundred fathoms below 

 the aqueous covering of the earth any solid spechnens of solid 

 matter for the study of philosophers. 



565. The deep-sea sounding apparatus of Peter the Great. The 



honour of the first attempt to recover specimens of the bottom 

 from great depths belongs to Peter the Great of Russia. That 

 remarkable man and illustrious monarch constructed a deep-sea 

 sounding apparatus especially for the Caspian Sea. It was some- 

 what in the shape of a pair of ice-hooks, and such as are seen in 

 the hands of the " ice-man," as, in his daily rounds, he lifts the 

 blocks of ice from his cart in the street for delivery at the door. 

 It was so contrived that when it touched the bottom the plum- 



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