Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1899 — SUBMARINE EUROPE. [ARTICLE]

SUBMARINE EUROPE.

Ages Ago the British Channel Was But a River Course. If England and France are not always at one now, there was a time when they were physically united, ac- ' cording to a map shown by Prof. Edward Hull at the Royal Geographical [ society, where he read a paper On i “Sub-Oceanic Features of the Coast iof Western Europe.” Among these features he described a deep canyon river course in the center of the English channel, running from the , Straights of Dover westward for a distance of 70 miles, known as “Hurd’s Deep,” Commander Hurd having discovered it while making soundings I for the admiralty. This gorge has a ! depth of 200 to 250 feet below the bed of the channel. It was kept open by | the force of the waters of the English channel as they rose and felt Very curious features were observed in the case of the Adour in France. The ravine through which it flowed at some ancient date was discoverable for a distance of GO or 70 miles from the ! coast, and about 50 miles out it divided, forming, as it were, an island, 9,000 feet down under the sea level. At one time there must have been some magnificent cascades in these gorges, as the declines in t-heir courses amounted to as much as 1 1,000 feet in a mile. Undoubtedly at one time the land extended far out into what is now the sea, and was several thousand feet higher than it is to-day, but the action of the water had worn the earth away. In the Bay of Biscay, 40 miles off Cape Pieto, is a scastack 200 fathoms below the surface of the sea, measuring on the land side 4,800 feet, and and on ftl« other side 7.800 feet from crown to base.—London Telegraph.