82 Selections from Huxley 



* 

 days, such a command as this might have sounded very 



much like one of the impossible things which the young 

 prince in the fairy tales is ordered to do before he can 

 obtain the hand of the princess. However, in the months 

 5 of June and July 1857, m y friend performed the task 

 assigned to him with great expedition and precision, with- 

 out, so far as I know, having met with any reward of that 

 kind. The specimens of Atlantic mud which he procured 

 were sent to me to be examined and reported upon.* 



10 The result of all these operations is, that we know the 

 contours and the nature of the surface-soil covered by the 

 North Atlantic, for a distance of 1,700 miles from east 

 to west, as well as we know that of any part of the dry 

 land. 



15 It is a prodigious plain one of the widest and most 

 even plains in the world. If the sea were drained off, 

 you might drive a wagon all the way from Valentia, on 

 the west coast of Ireland, to Trinity Bay, in Newfound- 

 land. And, except upon one sharp incline about 2OO 



20 miles from Valentia, I am not quite sure that it would 

 even be necessary to put the skid on, so gentle are the 

 ascents and descents upon that long route. From Valentia 

 the road would lie down-hill for about 200 miles to the 

 point at which the bottom is now covered by 1,700 



25 fathoms of sea-water. Then would come the central plain, 

 more than a thousand miles wide, the inequalities of the 

 surface of which would be hardly perceptible, though the 

 depth of water upon it now varies from 10,000 to 15,000 



* See Appendix to Captain Dayman's Deep-sea Soundings in 

 30 the North Atlantic Ocean, between Ireland and Newfoundland, 

 made in H.M.S. " Cyclops." Published by order of the Lords 

 Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1858. They have since formed 

 the subject of an elaborate Memoir by Messrs. Parker and Jones, 

 published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1865. 



