The Brattleboro Daily Reformer

There may be depths in the ocean greater than any yet sounded because it is only in selected places and along certain lines that systematic deep-sea soundings have been made. On the other hand, the soundings have revealed so much of the general configuration of the sea bottoms that it does not appear probable that any considerable depressions exist in any of the navigable oceans that are not already known. It is not likely that greater depths exist in any ocean than the "Nero Deep," near the island of Guam, in the Pacific ocean, where the plummet sinks 5,265 fathoms, or 31,600 feet (only 80 feet less than six miles).

It is not uninteresting to note that just as the largest continent Asia, has the highest mountain elevation, so the largest ocean, the Pacific, has the deepest depression. Mount Everest, thrown into the "Nero Deep," would have its summit covered by nearly 2,500 feet of water. The mean estimated depths of the three great oceans are: Pacific, 13,440 feet; Indian, 12,998 feet; Atlantic, 12,860 feet. The profoundest hole in the Atlantic is the Brownson Deep, in the "Porto Rico Trench," where the bottom sinks to a depth of 27,366 feet. Mount Everest dropped into that cavity would lift its head nearly 1,500 feet above sea level.

It is a singular fact that just as the loftiest peaks are found in mountain ranges, and not isolated, so the deepest depressions of the ocean exist in long trenches, which are cut like furrows in the sea bottom. The greatest known trench of this kind runs through the western part of the Pacific from a point northeast of Japan to the Nero Deep, already described, a distance of at least 2,400 miles. However, this is not all one unbroken trench, but rather a series of furrows, more or less closely connected, and bearing different names. Two of the holes along this line are respectively, 25,100, and 27,930 feet deep.

South of the equator in the Pacific, are the Tonga and Kermadec trenches, with sounding depths of 30,136 and 30,926 feet. Each of these is a thousand feet deeper than Mount Everest is high.

If the oceans were dried up, the atmosphere would settle down into the vast basins thus left empty and if the animal kingdom managed to remain on the plane it would have to migrate down into the depressed world yawning all around it where it would find unfamiliar valleys, plains, canyons and mountains, but after all it could not continue to exist there, for there would be no rivers no rains and no vegetation, The continental plateaus from which the creatures had descended would be covered with a thin, dry, cold air, which in itself would be inimical to life.

In regard to the sinking of metals in water there is a persistent misunderstanding. Not only lead but aluminum as well, would sink to the uttermost bottom of the sea The confusion of thought on this subject probably arises from the general knowledge that the pressure rapidly increases with increase of depth of water. If the density of the water also increased in proportion, a point might be reached where a body that sank near the surface would, lower, be buoyed up with sufficient force to keep it in suspension.

But in fact water is so slightly compressible that a depth of a mile a cubic foot of sea water, which weighs about 63 pounds at the surface, would have its weight increased by only eight ounces, although the pressure would be increased to a good deal more than a ton per square inch.

The whole principle rests upon the fact that when a solid is put into water it displaces a volume of water equal in weight to its (the solid's) own weight., and if the immersion is complete the volume or bulk, of water displaced equals that of the solid.