THE GREATEST OCEAN DEPTH.
The greatest known depth of the ocean is midway between the Island of Tristan d’Acunha and the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The bottom was there reached at a depth of 40,236 feet, or eight and three-quarter miles, exceeding by more than 17,000 feet the height of Mount Everest, the loftiest mountain in the world. In the North Atlantic Ocean, south of Newfoundland, soundings have been made to a depth of 4,580 fathoms, or 37,480 feet, while depths equaling 34,000 feet, or six and a half miles, are reported south of the Bermuda Islands. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and California is a little over 2,000 fathoms; between Chili and the Sandwich Islands, 2,500 fathoms; and between Chili and New Zealand, 1,500 fathoms. The average depth of all the oceans is from 2,000 to 2,500 fathoms.
Russian reports say that the Sea of Aral has been steadily rising since 1891. The sea level is now four feet above that of 1874. The line of railroad from Orenburg to Tashkend had to be changed in order to avoid being overflowed. Instead of sinking three inches a year, as German geographers had computed, the sea has been rising at the rate of four inches a year for the last ten years.
In 1812 it was La Souffrière, adjacent to the Morne Garou, which broke loose on the Island of St. Vincent, and it is the same Souffrière which now has devastated the island and is bombarding Kingston with rocks, lava and ashes.
The old crater of Morne Garou has long been extinct, and, like the old crater of Mont Pelee, near St. Pierre, it had far down in its depths, surrounded by sheer cliffs from 500 to 800 feet high, a lake.
Glimpses of the lake of Morne Garou were difficult to get, owing to the thick verdure growing about the dangerous edges of the precipices, but those who have seen it describe it as a beautiful sheet of deep blue water.