DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS.
(From a Letter to the Secretary of the Navy, 1854, given in Mrs. Corbin’s Life of Maury.[14])
The U. S. brig “Dolphin,” lieutenant commanding O. H. Berryman, was employed last summer upon special services connected with this office. . . . He was directed also to carry along a line of deep-sea soundings from the shores of Newfoundland to those of Ireland. The result is highly interesting upon the question of a submarine telegraph across the Atlantic, and I therefore beg leave to make it the subject of a special report.
This line of deep-sea sounding seems to be DECISIVE of the question as to the practicability of a submarine telegraph between the two continents in so far as the bottom of the deep sea is concerned. From Newfoundland to Ireland the distance between the nearest points is about 1600 miles, and the bottom of the sea between the two places is a plateau which seems to have been placed there especially for the purpose of holding the wires of the submarine telegraph, and of keeping them out of harm’s way. It is neither too deep nor too shallow; yet it is so deep that the wires but once landed will remain forever beyond the reach of the anchors of vessels, icebergs, and drifts of any kind, and so shallow, that they may be readily lodged upon the bottom. . . . . . .
A wire laid across from either of the above-named places on this side to the north of the Grand Banks, will rest on that beautiful plateau to which I have alluded, and where the waters of the sea appear to be as quiet and as completely at rest as it is at the bottom of a mill-pond. It is proper that the reasons should be stated for the inference that there are no perceptible currents and no abrading agents at work at the bottom of the sea upon this telegraphic plateau. I derive this inference from the study of a physical fact, which I little deemed, when I sought it, had any such bearings.
Lieutenant Berryman brought up, with “Brooke’s deep-sea sounding apparatus,” specimens of the bottom from this plateau. I sent them to Professor Bailey, at West Point, for examination under his microscope. This he kindly undertook, and that eminent microscopist was quite as much surprised to find, as I was to learn, that all these specimens of deep-sea soundings are filled with microscopic shells. To use his own words, “not a particle of sand or gravel exists in them.” These little shells therefore suggest the fact that there are no currents at the bottom of the sea whence they come; that Brooke’s lead found them where they were deposited in their burial-place. . . .
Had there been currents at the bottom, they would have swept and abraded and mingled up with these microscopic remains the débris of the bottom of the sea, such as ooze, sand, gravel, and other matter; but not a particle of sand or gravel was found among them. Hence the inference that these depths of the sea are not disturbed by either waves or currents. Consequently, a telegraphic wire once laid there would remain as completely beyond the reach of accident as it would be if buried in air-tight cases.
HEROIC DEATH OF LIEUTENANT HERNDON.
(From Maury’s Report, in Mrs. Corbin’s Life of Maury.[15])
U. S. National Observatory,
Washington, D. C., October 19th, 1857.