Curiosities of Science. 171 



degrees to extend only ten feet below the surface, the total and 

 absolute change made in such a mass of sea-water, by altering 

 its temperature two degrees, is equivalent to a change in its 

 volume of 390,000,000 cubic feet. 



TEANSPAEENCY OF THE OCEAN. 



Captain Glynn, U.S.N., has made some interesting obser- 

 vations, ranging over 200 of latitude, in different oceans, in 

 very high latitudes, and near the equator. His apparatus was 

 simple : a common white dinner-plate, slung so as to lie in 

 the water horizontally, and sunk by an iron pot with a line. 

 Numbering the fathoms at which the plate was visible below 

 the surface, Captain Glynn saw it on two occasions, at the 

 maximum, twenty-five fathoms (150 feet) deep ; the water was 

 extraordinarily clear, and to lie in the boat and look down was 

 like looking down from the mast-head ; and the objects were 

 clearly defined to a great depth. 



THE BASIN OF THE ATLANTIC. 



In its entire length, the basin of this sea is a long trough, 

 separating the Old World from the New, and extending pro- 

 bably from pole to pole. 



This ocean-furrow was scored into the solid crust of our 

 planet by the Almighty hand, that there the waters which 

 " he called seas" might be gathered together so as to " let the 

 dry land appear," and fit the earth for the habitation of man. 



From the top of Chimborazo to the bottom of the Atlan- 

 tic, at the deepest place yet recognised by the plummet in the 

 North Atlantic, 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, it would present 

 a scene the most grand, rugged, 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 at one 

 view, in the empty cradle of the ocean, "a thousand fearful 

 wrecks," with that dreadful array of dead men's skulls, great 

 anchors, heaps of pearls and inestimable stones, which, in the 

 dreamer's eye, lie scattered on the bottom of the sea, making 

 it hideous with sights of ugly death. 



GALES OF THE ATLANTIC. 



Lieutenant Maury has, in a series of charts of the North 

 and South Atlantic, exhibited, by means of colours, the pre- 

 valence of Gales over the more stormy parts of the oceans for 

 each month in the year. One colour shows the region in which 



