i^ii THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. 



does not exceed 1000 or 1200 feet. As we advance 

 eastward the depth augments rapidly, till it reaches 

 nearly 12,000 feet south-east of Malaga. Soon, how- 

 ever, the soil rises again. North of Melilla (a port on 

 the coast of Morocco) it is about 1200 feet from the 

 level of the sea, and forms a submarine mountain- 

 chain, which bounds on the east a sort of little basin 

 confined between the Sierra Nevada and the Marocco 

 mountains, which are reunited under the sea in the 

 Straits of Gibraltar. 



Continuing eastward, the explorer would descend 

 into another valley almost as deep as that mentioned 

 above, and communicating with that great depression 

 by a neck of the chain which stretches under the 

 waters from Oran to the Cape of Gades. Having 

 surmounted this obstacle, we bend our steps north- 

 east, and find ourselves in a great depression, which is 

 narrow at first, but gradually spreading out becomes 

 a great plain stretching to the Balearic Isles and the 

 coasts of Sardinia and Algeria. We leave this great 

 depression or basin by climbing a very steep ascent to 

 the north-west. We then find ourselves upon an ex- 

 tended plateau, from which rise numerous mountain- 

 peaks. The principal of these form the Balearic 

 Isles. The plateau is scarcely interrupted by Cartha- 

 gena and Valencia, by the Balearic Isles, and by 

 Corsica. It narrows, however, between these islands. 



