6 THE OCEAN WOKLD. 



The greatest depth at which the bottom has been reached with this 

 plummet is in the North Atlantic between the parallels of thirty-five 

 and forty degrees north, and immediately south of the great bank 

 of rocks off Newfoundland. This does not appear to be more than 

 twenty-five thousand feet deep. " The basin of the Atlantic," says 

 Maury, " according to the deep-sea soundings in the accompanying 

 diagram, is a long trough separating the Old World from the New, 

 and extending, probably, from pole to pole. In breadth, it contrasts 

 strongly with the Pacific Ocean. From the top of Chimborazo to 

 the bottom of the Atlantic, at the deepest place yet reached by 

 the plummet in that ocean, the distance in a vertical line is nine 

 miles." 



" Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to 

 view this great sea gash which separates continents, and extends from 

 the Arctic to the Antarctic Seas, it would present a scene the most 

 rugged, grand, and imposing ; the very ribs of the solid earth with the 

 foundations of the sea would be brought to light, and we should have 

 presented to us in one view, in the empty cradle of the ocean, ' a 

 thousand fearful wrecks,' with the array of ' dead men's skulls, great 

 anchors, heaps of pearls, and inestimable stones,' which, in the poet's 

 eye, lie scattered on the bottom of the sea, making it hideous with 

 the sight of ugly death." 



The depth of the Mediterranean is comparatively inconsiderable. 

 Between Gibraltar and Ceuta, Captain Smith estimates the depth 

 at about five thousand seven hundred feet, and from one to three 

 thousand in the narrower parts of the straits. Near Nice, Saussure 

 found bottom at three thousand two hundred and fifty. It is said 

 that the bottom is shallower in the Adriatic, and does not exceed 

 a hundred and forty feet between the coast of Dalmatia and the 

 mouths of the Po. 



The Baltic Sea is remarkable for its shallow waters, its maximum 

 rarely exceeding six hundred feet. 



It thus appears that the sea has similar inequalities to those 

 observed on land ; it has its mountains, valleys, hills, and plains. 



The Deep-sea Sounding Apparatus of Lieutenant Brooke has already 

 furnished some very remarkable results. Aided by it, Dr. Maury has 

 constructed his fine orographic map of the basin of the Atlantic, which 

 is probably as exact as the maps which represent Africa or Australia. 



