I I 2 SEA AND LAND 



Iron sides and beams afford no food to the marine animals ; 

 nevertheless they are attacked by the sea-waters, and tlieir 

 decay probably proceeds so rapidly, and the gravitative 

 energy of their metallic parts is so great, that they more 

 c|uickly fall into ruins, which can hardly be as picturesque as 

 those of the older type of vessels. It is doubtful if the 

 wrecks of any of the modern men-of-war which have foun- 

 dered at sea will hold together for fifty years, while those sunk 

 during the action of Trafalgar may endure for centuries in the 

 grim semblance of battle ships. 



The idea that ships are likely to be buried in the accumu- 

 lations which are forming on the deeper sea-floor, rests upon 

 a mistaken conception as to the speed with which sediments 

 are laid down at a distance froni the shore. These deposits 

 of the open oceans are so slowly made that we must deem it 

 excessive to suppose that a depth of a single inch can be 

 formed in a thousand years. It is likely that in no case, save 

 near the coast-line, or in the rare places where the showers 

 of volcanic waste bring an unusually large amount of detritus, 

 can a ship be buried in the accumulating strata so as to be 

 preserved in a recognizable form. If the creatures of the far 

 future, to whom it ma)' l)e given to scan the rocks which are 

 now forming and are hereafter to be uplifted into dry land, 

 are to find a trace of their remote ancestors in the deposits, 

 they will secure it, not by discovering the hulks of great 

 vessels, probaljly not from the bones of men or the common 

 implements which serve them in seafaring, but from the 

 objects composed of glass, or more likely those made of the 

 rarer metals such as gold and platinum. Of the vast wreck- 

 age of an iron war-ship such as the "Captain," which sunk in 

 the Bay of Biscay, the hulk, great guns, shot, and shell, the 



