308 rnvsicAL geography of thk sea, and its meteorology. 



met would bdcomc detached, and the hook would bring up the 



specimen. 



566. A plan of drcp-sea soundlno devised for the American navy, 

 —The sea, with its myths, has suggested attractive themes to all 

 people in all ages. Like the heavens, it aifords an almost endless 

 variety of subjects for pleasing and profitable contemplation, and 

 there has remained in the human mind a longing to learn more 

 of its wonders and to understand its mysteries. The Bible often 

 alludes to them. Are they past finding out? How deep is it ? 

 and what is at the bottom of it? Could not the ingenuity and 

 appliances of the age throw some light upon these questions? 

 The government was liberal and enlightened ; times seemed pro- 

 pitious ; but when or how to begin, after all these failures, with 

 this interesting problem, was one of the difficulties first to be 

 overcome. It was a common opinion, derived chiefly from a 

 supposed physical relation, that the depths of the sea are about 

 equal to the heights of the mountains. But this conjecture was, 

 at best, only a speculation. Though plausible, it did not satisfy. 

 There were, in the depths of the sea, untold wonders and in- 

 explicable mysteries. Therefore the contemplative mariner, as 

 in mid-ocean he looked down upon its gentle bosom, continued 

 to experience sentiments akin to those which fill the mind of the 

 devout astronomer when, in the stillness of the night, he looks 

 out upon the stars, and wonders. Nevertheless, the depths of the 

 sea still remained as fathomless and as mysterious as the firma- 

 ment above. Indeed, telescopes of huge proportions and of vast 

 space-penetrating powers had been erected here and there by the 

 munificence of individuals, and attempts made with them to 

 gauge the heavens and sound out the regions of space. Could it 

 be more difiicult to sound out the sea than to gauge the blue 

 ether and fathom the vaults of the sky ? The result of the astro- 

 nomical undertakings* lies in the discovery that what, through 

 other instruments of less power, appeared as clusters of stars, 

 were, by these of larger powers, separated into groups, and what 

 had been reported as nebulae, could now be resolved into clusters ; 

 that in certain directions, the abyss beyond these faint objects is 

 decked with other nebula3, which these great instruments may 

 bring to light but cannot resolve ; and that there are still regions 

 and realms bevond which the rays of the brightest sun in the sky 

 have neither the intensity nor the force to reach, much less to 

 * See the works of Herschel aud Rosse, and their telescopes. 



