Fig. 3.—Section of the Atlantic, showing its depth, and the position of the Atlantic Telegraph, 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
the coast of Scotland, afterwards taking the direction of 
the Azores, to the north of which bottom was found, 
consisting of chalk and yellow sand, at 9,600 feet. To 
the south of Newfoundland the depth was found to 
be 16,500 feet. In 1856, Lieutenant Berryman, of the 
American steamer Arctic, completed a line of soundings 
from St. John, Newfoundland, to Valentia, off the Irish 
coast; and in 1857, Lieutenant Dayman, of the English 
steamship Cyc/ops, repeated the same operation : this last 
line of soundings, the result of which is represented in 
the accompanying section, differed slightly from that 
followed by Lieutenant Berryman. In the Gulf of 
Mexico the depth does not seem to exceed 7,000 feet. 
The Arctic Ocean has, probably, no great depth. 
Hence, salt water, following the general law of con- 
tracting as it cools, until it freezes, no ice can be formed 
on its surface till the temperature has fallen through its 
entire depth nearly to freezing point, when the entire 
mass is consolidated into pack-ice. According to Baron 
Wrangel, the bottom of the glacial sea, on the north 
coast of Siberia, forms a gentle slope, and, at the distance 
of 200 miles from the shore, it is still only from ninety to 
too feet. Nevertheless, in Baffin’s Bay, Dr. Kane made 
soundings at 11,600 feet. 
The inequalities of the basin of the Pacific Ocean 
are, comparatively, unknown to us. The greatest depth 
observed by Lieutenant Brooke in the great ocean is ’ 
2,700 fathoms, which he found in 59° north latitude and 
166° east longitude. Applying the theory of waves to 
the billows propelled from the coast of Japan to Cali- 
fornia, during the earthquake of the 23rd of December, 
1854, Professor Bache calculated that the mean depth of- 
this part of the Pacific is 14,400 feet. In the Pacific 
Ocean, latitude 60° south and 160° east longitude, he 
found soundings at 14,600 feet—about two miles and a 
half. Another cast of the lead in the Indian Ocean was 
made in 7,040 fathoms, but without bringing up any soil 
from the bottom. Among the fragments brought up from 
the bottom of the Coral Sea, a remarkable absence of 
calcareous shells was noted, whilst the siliceous frag- 
ments of sponges were found in great quantities. Other 
soundings made in the Pacific, at a depth of four or five 
