The Sea and its Living Wonders

The Sea and its Living Wonders. A Popular Account of the Marvels of the Deep and of the Progress of Martime Discovery from the Earliest Ages to the 1900’s

CHAPTER I.

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SEA.

Extent of the Ocean.—Length of its Coast-Line.—Mural, Rocky, and Flat Coasts.—How deep is the Sea?—Average Depth of the Atlantic Ocean.—The Telegraphic Plateau between Newfoundland and Ireland.—Measurement of Depth by the Rapidity of the Tide-Wave.—Progressive Changes in the Limits of the Ocean.—Alluvial Deposits.—Upheaving.—Subsidence.—Does the Level of the Sea remain unchanged, and is it everywhere the same?—Composition and Temperature of Sea-Water.—Its intrinsic Colour.—The Azure Grotto at Capri.—Modification of Colour owing to Animals and Plants.—Submarine Landscapes viewed through the Clear Waters.

Of all the gods that divide the empire of the earth, Neptune rules over the widest realms. If a giant-hand were to uproot the Andes and cast them into the sea, they would be engulphed in the abyss, and scarcely raise the general level of the waters.

The South American Pampas, bounded on the north by tropical palm-trees, and on the south by wintry firs, are no doubt of magnificent dimensions, yet these vast deserts seem insignificant when compared with the boundless plains of earth-encircling ocean. Nay! a whole continent, even America or Asia, appears small against the immensity of the sea, which covers with its rolling waves nearly three-fourths of the entire surface of the globe.

A single glance over the map shows us at once how very unequally water and land are distributed. In one part we see continents and islands closely grouped together, while in another the sea widely spreads in one unbroken plain; here vast peninsulas stretch far away into the domains of ocean, while there immense gulfs plunge deeply into the bosom of the land. At first sight it might appear as if blind chance had presided over this distribution, but a nearer view convinces us that providential 


laws have established the existing relations between the solid and fluid surfaces of the earth. If the sea had been much smaller, or if the greatest mass of land had been concentrated in the tropical zone, all the meteorological phenomena on which the existence of actual organic life depends would have been so different, that it is doubtful whether man could then have existed, and certain that, under those altered circumstances, he never would have attained his present state of civilisation. The dependence of our intellectual development upon the existing configuration of the earth, convinces us that Divine wisdom and not chaotic anarchy has from all eternity presided over the destinies of our planet……………………………………