Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1891 — ON THE BED OF THE OCEAN. [ARTICLE]

ON THE BED OF THE OCEAN.

What the Floor of the Atlantic Looks Like, as Shown In a Relief Map.

Rene Baehe tn Kate Field’s Washington. *. One often hears about the “floor” of ttffe Atlantic, but the significance pf the term so applied can in no way be vividly conveyed to the mind as by viewing a wonderful relief map that stands in the Superintendent’s room at the United States Coast Survey office. This is a big picture in plaster of paris, of what is called the Bay of North America, which means the great sweep-in of the ocean from Nova Scotia to the West Indies, and of the Gulf of Mexico, with "all of the United States that lies north of the gulf shown also. Just as the mountains on the land are represented in elevation, the configuration of the bottom of the sea and gulf is exhibited by the map, so that you can see how the Atlantic and its great arm would look if all the water were drained away. The first thing you remark is tlfat the bottom of the vast bay of the A tlantic is a floor almost as smooth and-level as a Western prairie, save quite near the eas teni~ ~s~Sbfe ' df the continent. If the water were gone, you could drive very comfortably in a carriage over a nice shell road all the way from the Bermudas to within 150 miles of cape Hatteras, which would be the nearest point of dry land to reach. Then you would have to climb, for at that distance from the coast the bottom begins to rise from the even depth of three miles at which you have been journeying, to nearly a mile higher, in a distance about equal to that between Philadelphia and New York. From that point on you would be obliged to dismount and do some real walking, inasmuch the ascent becomes quite abrupt, rising within a few miles to a depth of only two or three hundred feet. But the sort of traveling you would do in mounting from the ocean floor to get to the coast would depend entirely upon what point along the coast you tried to strike, inasmuch as the contour of the slope varies greatly. ; The line of the bottom of the slope follows in a general way the trend of the shore southwest from Cape Sable to the southern part of Florida; but at some points it is much, farther off from the coast, its distance opposite Savannah beingabout 300 miles, and nearly as much opposite New York. It would be imprudent to try the route from the Bermudas direct to New York, because you would be likely to get into a remarkable, hole that goes down suddenly, just before the slope begins, from the level floor three miles deep to nearly a mile deeper. But you might go comfortably from within 200 miles of Cape Sable to very near San Domingo and Porto Rico in the West Indian group, traveling in a buggy straight south more than the length of the United States. You would find an even road, at a little more than three miles down below what is now the surface of the sea, descending a trifle after getting south of the latitude of Jacksonville, Fla. Then you would have to look out; because, a few miles to the north of Porto Rico the ocean floor takes a most astounding dip into one of the deepest sea-holes that can be found in the world. Reaching its edge at about 130 miles from Porto Rico, you would find this tremendous gulf suddenly descending to a depth of more than five miles below what is now the surface of the water. It is extraordinary how these West Indian Islands rise precipitously from the depths, uplifting their mountains miles high out of the sea. South of Cuba, in the Carribean Sea, is a hole even more remarkable than the one just described.

It is much bigger than the one north of Porto Rico, and forms an elongated valley nearly six and a half miles in depth. Who can guess what ocean monsters, pulpy, vast, and formless, inhabit these great ocean caverns lighted only by processions of torch-bearing fishes? What haunts, these, for the sea serpent and for the gigantic creatures imagined to be extinct since the Deluge! » Among other surprising things at the bottom of the sea, you would in your travels come across the little Bahamas east of Southern Florida, where they rise suddenly from the ocean’s floor with so little slope that, within a distance of thirty miles, you would have to climb more than three miles high to find yourself in Nassau. So it appears, as had not been suspected until recently, that these islands are the tops of very precipitous mountain peaks projecting out of the water. A still more extraordinary submarine structure you would discover in the Bermundas, some 800 miles due east from Charleston. These islands rise abruptly out if the midst of the great flat ocean plain. They, top, are the peaks of mighty and precipitous hills. The bottom floor of the Gulf of Mexico is little less than two and-a half miles deep. Flowing out of it, the great perennial stream becomes so shallow by the time it reaches the southern point of Florida as to be loss than a-half mile in depth, while .is it sweeps up close by the southeast shore line of that State, it diminishes to but little more than a quarter of a mile before swerving off from the coast on its journey northwestward. What makes the Gulf .Stream has long been a matter of dispute, but science has arrived at the conclusion that the trade winds blowing steadily from the southeast, push the water fipm tropics and pile it up in the Gulf of Mexico. The readiest outlet fdr this water, and the one it naturalij- seeks, is east-

ward between Florida and Cuba and up along the east coast of the United States, upon whose climate itfhak so much influenoe. One reason for this theory is that, at the fee of the year when the trade winds blow the other way, the flow of the Gulf Stream lessens in rapidity, the “head” of water in the Gulf being not so great.