DEPTH OE THE OCEAN. 
11 
In the Gulf of Mexico, the depth does not seem to exceed seven 
thousand feet ; the Baltic does not in any place exceed eleven hun- 
dred. The depth of the Mediterranean is, as we have said, very variable. 
At Nice, according to Horace de Saussure, the average depth is three 
thousand three hundred feet. Between the Dalmatian coast and the 
Aioutli of the Po, bottom is found at a hundred and forty feet. 
Captain Smith found soundings at from one thousand to nine thou- 
sand feet in the Straits of Gibraltar, and at ten thousand feet 
between Gibraltar and Ceuta, where the breadth exceeds sixteen miles. 
Between Khodes and Alexandria, the greatest depth is ten thousand 
feet. Between Alexandria and Candia it is ten thousand three hun- 
dred, A hundred and twenty miles east of Malta it is fifteen thousand. 
The peculiar form of the Mediterranean has led to its being compared 
fe a vast inverted tunnel. 
The Arctic Ocean has, probably, no great depth. According to 
Baron Wrangel, the bottom of the glacial sea, on the north coast of 
Liberia, forms a gentle slope, and, at the distance of two hundred 
Aules from the shore, it is still only from ninety to a hundred feet. 
Nevertheless, in Baffin’s Bay, Dr. Kane made soundings at eleven 
thousand six hundred feet. 
The inequalities of the basin of the Pacific Ocean are, comparatively, 
unknown to us. The greatest depth observed by Lieutenant Brooke 
111 the great ocean is two thousand seven hundred fathoms, which he 
feund in fifty-nine degrees north latitude and one hundred and sixty- 
six degrees east longitude. Applying the theory of waves to the billows 
Propelled from the coast of Japan to California, during tire earth- 
quake of the 23rd of December, 1854, Professor Bache calculated that 
the mean depth of this part of the Pacific is fourteen thousand 
four hundred feet. In the Pacific Ocean, latitude sixty degrees 
s °uth and one hundred and sixty degrees east longitude, he found 
So 'ladings at fourteen thousand six hundred feet — about two miles and 
a half. Another cast of the lead in the Indian Ocean was made in 
Seve n thousand and forty fathoms, but without bringing up any .soil from 
fhe bottom. Among the fragments brought up from the bottom of the 
* °ral Sea, a remarkable absence of calcareous shells was noted, whilst 
fhe siliceous fragments of sponges w T ere found in great quantities. Other 
fundings made in the Pacific, at a depth of four or five miles, were 
°xamined by Ehrenberg, who found a hundred and thirty-five different 
