SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 
59 
id difficile est, quam difficile montium per universam telluris superficiem diffusorum 
altitudines certa ratione inquirere ; ut proinde illud hue quadrare videatur : altitudinem 
eceli, latitudinem Terrse, profunditatem maris quis mensus est ? ” 1 
Varenius 2 states that the depth of the sea may reach one German mile; at certain Yakknius’ Views 
points the depth varies from T u to 1 a mile. But, as in the case of Kircher, ^ 
this opinion is not founded, with regard to great depths, on actual soundings. Varenius 
explains why the sea becomes shallower as the shore is approached, by saying that it is 
due to the concave form of the ocean basins. We have given Kircher’s arguments 
against those who maintained that the bottom of the sea was a plain with few elevations, 
and those who professed that it was possible for man to determine the depth of the 
ocean. V arenius tries to show that the sea is not infinitely deep ; the earth being a 
sphere, the radius cannot be infinite, nor, therefore, the depth of the sea. And, besides, 
the sea has a bottom ; it does not extend from one point on the earth’s surface to any 
other opposite point, for if the land were to be thus divided by the sea, it would, owing 
to its weight, immediately come together again. The observations made in the 
Mediterranean led Varenius to believe that some relation does exist betAveen the height of 
the coast and the depth of that sea. 
Similar ideas as to the depth of the ocean were developed a. century later by Marsilli Mabsillx’s 
in his Histoire physique de la Mer. Marsilli argues that the bottom of the Mediter- Anys !^ ov -mm' 
ranean in the Gulf of Lions is not only united with the shores, but forms a continuation Ocean. 
of them , he rejects the opinion of the coral-fishers that those parts of the sea situated 
further from the shores, and called abysses, have no bottom. He says ; 3 — “ The 
fishermen, working on that slope where they are in the habit of finding coral at 150 
and 200 fathoms, and their lines not allowing soundings in greater depths, imagine that 
the bottom cannot be found, and call it, in their exaggerated jargon, a bottomless abyss, 
impossible to be sounded. This idea, entertained by people of experience in marine 
matters, as well as by the simple fishers, appears to me absurd, and founded merely on 
the fact that nobody has yet cared to undertake the trouble and expense required for 
such soundings, which, according to all appearances, will never be made unless some 
prince orders for that purpose special vessels with suitable instruments. With regard to 
seamen, they never seek the bottom in deep waters My various observations 
on the highest mountains of Europe, which I took with the barometer, induced mo to 
seek the greatest depths of the sea, deeming that under the water, abysses of corresponding 
1 Ibid, p. 97. In the following chapter (cap. xv., De inaequalitate fundi inaris cut jungitur Historia memorabilis 
supradicta confirmans, fol. 98, 99), Kircher confirms what he has just said on the irregularity of the sea-bottom by t! 
history of the famous diver Pescecola, an authentic account of which was given him by the Secretary of the Royal 
Archives of Sicily. This account is almost as fabulous as that which we quoted from Mas hull, on the foundation of 
Alexandria, and represents tolerably well the ideas then prevalent regarding the animals peopling the bot: an • the 
sea, regarding the lower currents, and the form of the bottom. 
2 Varenius, op. tit., p. 143. 
* Histoire physique de la Mer, par L. F. Comte de Marsilli, traduit par H. Bcerhaavc, Amsterdam, 17_f>, ; . I 1 '. 
