Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1887 — Wonders of the Sea. [ARTICLE]

Wonders of the Sea.

The sea occupies three-fifths of the earth. ’■ The'Mediterranean is quite shallow. A drying up of ,660 feet would leave three different seas, and Africa would be joined with Italy. Evaporation is a wonderful power in ' drawing the water from the sea. j Every year a layer of the entire sea fourteen feet deep is taken up in the clouds. The water is colder at the bottom than at the surface. In the many bays on the coast of Norway the water often freezes at the bottom before it does above. At the depth of about 3,500 feet waves are not felt. The temperature is the same, varying only a trifle irom the ice of the pole to the burning sun of the equator. A mile down the water has a pressure of over a ton to the square inch. If a box six feet deep were filled with sea water and allowed to evaporate under the sun there would be two inches of salt left on the bottom. Taking the average depth of the ocean to be three miles, there would be a layer of pure salt 230 feet thick on the bottom of the Atlantic. If the Atlantic were lowered 6,464 feet the distance from shore to shore would be half as great, or 1,500 miles. If lowered a little more than three miles, say 18,680 feet, there would be a road of dry land from Newfoundland to Ireland. This is the plain on which the great Atlantic cables were laid. Waves are very deceptive. To look at them in a storm one would think the water traveled. The water stays in the same place, but the motion goes on. Sometimes in storms these waves are forty feet high, and travel fifty miles an hour—more than twice as fast as the swiftest steamer. The distance from valley to valley is generally fifteen times the height, hence a wave five feet high will extend over seventy-five feet of water. It has been found difficult to get correct soundings of the Atlantic. A midshipman of the navy overcame the difficulty, and a shot weighing thirty pounds carries down the line. A hole is bored through the sinker, through which a rod of iron is passed, moving easily back and forth. In the end of the bar a cup is dug out, and the inside coated with lard. The bar is made fast to the line, and a sling holds the shot on. When the bar, which extends below the ball, touches the earth the sling unhooks and the shot slides off. The lard in the end of the bar holds some of the sand, or whatever may be on the bottom, and a drop shuts over the cup to keep the water from washing the sand out. When the ground is reached a shock is felt, as if an electric current had passed through the line.