Fjords and Submerged Valleys of Europe. — Upha/n. 105 
tiguous sea bed, with their bottoms 570 to 1,194 feet below the 
present sea level, are ascertained by soundings in various parts 
of the British submarine platform. The most notable of these 
valleys are the "Hurd Deep," four to five miles across and 
extending 70 miles westward in the English channel, south of 
the limits of glaciation, and a remarkable valley extending 30 
miles with a width of one and a half to two miles and depth of 
300 to 400 feet below the bed of the deep and broad passage 
that separates Scotland and Ireland. The position and nar- 
rowness of the second of these submarine valleys, as of those 
noted off the coast of Norway, preclude its reference to glacial 
erosion. Its maximum soundings, 1,194 feet, indicate for this 
region during some part of the Pliocene period, while the 
alluvial and marine deposition of the British platform was 
being completed, an elevation probably 1,200 to 1,500 feet 
higher than now, or nearly like that estimated for Norway dur- 
ing the same period. 
Farther south, where no confusing conditions of glacial 
erosion and deposition can impart any uncertainty to our in- 
terpretation of contours of the submerged continental border, 
we have in the southeast part of the Bay of Biscay a most 
significant ancient river valley in the sea bed, traced about 120 
miles westward from Cap Breton, France, nearly parallel with 
the northeast shore of Spain. Coast charts kindly obtained for 
me in Paris by Prof. N. H. Winchell supply the following 
notes of this wonderful submerged river course, which is 
called the "Fosse de Cap Breton." It begins a quarter of a 
mile offshore about one mile north of Cap Breton village, 
having there a depth of 125 feet; within the next quarter of a 
mile it deepens to 230 feet, with a depth of only 50 or 60 feet 
close north and south; and a mile offshore the old valley has a 
sounding of 350 feet, but only a depth of 100 feet is found 
within a fifth of a mile both north and south. Along the next 
five miles the submarine valley sinks to a de])th of i.030 feet; 
but it includes one sounding of 1,220 feet at a distance of 
three miles from the shore. Its width at this exceptionally 
deep spot is about one mile, the sea bed on each side having 
the depth of 130 to 150 feet. At the distance of six miles the 
valley is one and a half miles wide, with soundings of 260 feet 
to the general continental slo])e, beneath which the old river 
