APPENDIX. 355 



The materials used for tlds map* and profile were the deep-sea 

 soundings already mentioned as made by Walsh, Taylor,eLee, and 

 Barron, together with others which had been received from the 

 Congress, Commodore M 'Kee ver ; the Portsmouth, Captain Dornin ; 

 the Cyane, Captain Paine ; the St. Louis, Captain Ingraham ; the 

 Plymouth, Captain Kelly ; the Germantown, Captain Knight ; the 

 Susquehanna, Captain Inman ; and Lieutenant Warley, of the 

 Jamestown, Captain Downing. These were the first maps of the 

 kind ever attempted for " blue water." Their object was to show 

 the depressions of the solid crust of our planet helow^ as geographers 

 seek to represent its elevations above the sea-level.f . The "tele- 

 graphic plateau" is there delineated on Plate XIY., very much as 

 the subsequent deep-sea soundings have shown it to be. This at- 

 tempt to map out the bottom of the deep sea was regarded with 

 exceeding interest by the learned. Humboldt gave it high praise ; 

 it 0|)ened the freshest and most interesting field that remained to 

 him for contemplation in the domains of science. 



Up to this time, however, nothing had ever been brought up 

 from the deep sea. The plummet was a cannon ball, and the 

 sounding-line a bit of small twine which was broken off when the 

 cannon ball reached the bottom, so that ball and twine remained 

 behind ; consequently every cast of the deep-sea plummet involved 

 the loss of a shot and of as much twine as it took to reach the 

 bottom. It was desirable to bring up soundings, not only that we 

 might leam what the bottom and bed of the ocean were made of, 

 but that we might know of a verity and have the proof that the 

 bottom had been reached. 



Under these circumstances, the attention of Lieutenant J. M. 

 Brooke, who was at the time stationed at the Observatory, was 

 called to the subject, when he made,/??^ hringmg iq^ specimens from 

 the hottovij the beautiful and simple contrivance known as "Brooke's 

 deep-sea sounding apparatus." 



When the Dolphin returned from the Tagus, which she did in 

 March, 1853, arriving at Norfolk on the 7th of that month, she was 

 ordered to sea again under Berryman, to assist stilh farther "in 

 perfecting the discoveries made by Lieutenant Maury in the course 



* See Plates XIV. and XV., Maury's Sailing Directions, 5tli edition, 

 t See p. 239, 240, oth ed. Maury's Sailing Directions, printed by C. Alexander, 

 Washington, and published in February, 1853. 



