CHANGES IN MEDITERRANEAN FLOOR 245 



the steep shorelines and the profound depths of the sea adjacent to them; 

 the remarkably abrupt changes in depth of the sea-floor, and the numer- 

 ous seaquakes, submarine eruptions, and earthquakes on the near shores — 

 these conditions give to the field of Mr Forster's observations a very un- 

 usual importance. 



On the Ligurian coast in the maritime Alps, Upper Eocene beds are 

 found at an elevation of 9,000 feet and Pliocene deposits at an altitude 

 of 1,800 feet. Study of the sea bottom near shore shows that at the end 

 of Pliocene or beginning of Quaternary time there was an elevation of 

 nearly 5,000 feet, and that subsequently there has been a depression of 

 the sea-floor comparatively near shore of about 3,000 feet. Eecent move- 

 ment of the same nature is shown not only by the earthquakes, but by 

 verifiable changes of level. 



The facts which Forster has gleaned by a long experience are strik- 

 ing enough, and they indicate that the geological changes which have 

 been observed upon the land areas at the time of earthquakes are rela- 

 tively small when compared to those which occur upon the sea-floor along 

 such great scarps as his soundings have there discovered. Some of these 

 precipices are from 3,000 to 5,000 feet high. Between the bow and stem 

 soundings of the repair ship differences of 2,000 feet were measured. 

 At the moment of the earthquake of October 36, 1873, the cable to the 

 mainland broke 7 miles from the Zante office, and was firmly jammed 

 under fallen material in a depth of 3,000 feet of water where formerly 

 there had been 1,400 feet. In 1878, in connection with the violent 

 earthquake across the Adriatic in Messina, which was felt slightly in 

 Zante, the cable to Canea (Crete) was broken in two places 139 and 99 

 knots from the Cretan end, and so imeven had the floor become between 

 these breaks that it was necessary to make a detour in laying the repaired 

 cable. The earthquake of March 38, 1885, again injured this Crete- 

 Zante cable, this time outside Sapienza, where the floor is extremely irreg- 

 ular and drops off quickly from 700 to 10,000 feet. In this instance the 

 cable was jammed under a mass of material which had apparently been 

 shaken from this cliff. 



Another of Forster's interesting observations relates to the earthquake 

 of August 15, 1886. In this instance the line from Zante to Crete was 

 in use for a message at the time the shocks frightened the operator from 

 the office, but only a few moments afterward the testing apparatus was 

 adjusted and a dead break in the cable was located 33 miles from Zante. 

 On grappling for the broken cable the repair ship found that the bottom 

 suddenly increased in depth to the south of the break from 4,500 to 

 5,800 feet. A break occurred in the Zante-Corfu cable during the earth- 



