would take a million clocks 370,000 years to tick off this number. Its weight is 325,000 billion tons, and the number of gallons in it is 73 trillion. The Atlantic is 6.5 feet higher than the Pacific at the Isthmus of Panama.

THE PACIFIC.

The Pacific Ocean has about one-third the area of the earth's surface. It extends through 135 degrees of latitude, three-eights of the world's circumference, a stretch of 9,000 miles from north to south. From east to west it varies from an even greater length to less than 50 miles. It has an area, according to one authority, of 7,309,000 square miles. Its surface would form a circle 9,300 miles in diameter. Its average depth is about three miles. It is estimated that it contains nearly 230,000,000 cubic miles of water. It would take a person an hour to walk around one of these cubes if it were solid, and 10,000 steps in ascending a staircase to its top. The number of cubic feet of water in it is said to be 34 trillions. If a million clocks ticked a million years they would not tick off the number. At 62 pounds to the cubic foot of water, the weight of the Pacific is over 2,000 trillion pounds.

OCEANOGRAPHY.

Oceanography, or the geography of the sea, has become a science. Since the cruise of the Challenger it has been found that there are 43 great deep sea valleys. Lead lines have penetrated into them so deep that the sun's rays are lost miles above their bottom. In these valleys there are no plants or vegetation of any kind, because such forms of life need light and at these depths there is total darkness. But animal life flourishes, and attains in some species gigantic proportions. Most of these animals are without eyes. It is estimated that three-fourths of the deposits covering the bottom of the ocean have at some time passed through alimentary canals of marine animals. Sir John Murray estimated the area occupied by these deep sea valleys at 7,152,000 geographical square miles, or about seven per cent. of the water surface of the globe.

DEPTHS OF OCEAN.

"From the top of Chimborazo to the bottom of the Atlantic, on the deepest part yet reached," says Maury, "the distance in a vertical line is nine miles. Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off so as to expose to view the great sea-gash (the basin of the Atlantic) which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic t the Atlantic, it would present a scene the most rugged grand and imposing. The very ribs of the solid eart!. with the foundations of the sea would be brought to light and we would have presented to us in one view, in the empty 'cradle of the ocean,' a thousand fearful wrecks, with that dreadful array of skulls and treasure which lie scattered at the bottom of the sea."

The average depth of the Pacific Ocean is 12,780 feet; of the Atlantic, 12,060 feet; of the Indian, 10,980 feet; of the Antarctic, 6,000 feet; and of the Arctic, 5,100 feet.

The average depth of the Pacific Ocean, between Japan and California, is a little over 2,000 fathoms; between Chile and the Sandwich Islands, 2,500 fathoms; and between Chile and New Zealand, 4,500 fathoms. The average depth of all the oceans is from 2,000 to 3,000 fathoms.

The British ship Penguin has found a valley of the sea floor 28,572 feet deep between New Zealand and the Tonga Islands. The crowning peak of the Himalayas is the only one that surpasses in altitude this deep of the Pacific. The American ship Tuscarora sounded 27,930 feet northeast of Japan, in the vast depression known as the Tuscarora Deep. The British ship Challenger found a depth of 27,448 feet not far from the island of Guam, which has recently become American territory.

Where the sea is deepest one hundred Trinity Church steeples one above another would not reach the bottom. This is nearly six miles deep.

The close approximation between mountains and seavalleys in variation respectively above and below the sea level, is to be noted as a suggestive fact in natural history, the surface of the ocean thus indicating the true surface of the solid globe.

Some of the greatest known depths of the different oceans that have been reliably sounded are as follows: North Atlantic Ocean, 4,561 fathoms, lat. 19° 39' N., long. 66° 26' W.; South Atlantic Ocean, 3,284 fathoms, lat. 19° 55′ S., long. 24° 50′ W.; North Sea (Skegerack), 442 fathoms, lat. 58° 12' N., long. 9° 30' E.; Baltic Sea, 233 fathoms, lat. 58° 37′ N., long. 18° 30′ E.; Mediterranean Sea, 2,405 fathoms, lat. 35° 45′ N., long. 21° 46′ E.; Black Sea, 1,431 fathoms, lat 42° 55′ N., long. 33° 18' E.; Caribbean Sea, 3,427 fathoms, lat. 19° N., long. 81° 10' W.; Indian Ocean, 3,393 fathoms, lat. 11° 22' S., long. 116° 59' E.; North Pacific Ocean, 4,655 fathoms, lat. 44° 55′ N., long. 152° 26' E.; South Pacific Ocean, 4,428 fathoms, lat. 24° 37' S., long. 175° 8' W.; Behring Sea, 2,146 fathoms, lat. 54° 30′ N., long. 175° 32′ W.; Sea of Japan, 1,640 fathoms, lat. 38° 30' N., long. 135° W.; China Sea, 2,350 fathoms, lat. 17° 15′ N., long. 118° 50' E.; Sulu Sea, 2,549 fathoms, lat. 8° 32′ N., long. 121° 55' E.; Celebes Sea, 2,794 fathoms, lat. 4° 16' N., long. 124° 2′ E.; Banda Sea, 2,799 fathoms, lat. 5° 24′ S., long. 130° 37′ E.; Flores Sea, 2,799 fathoms, lat. 7° 43′ S., long. 120° 26' E.; Arctic Ocean, 2,469 fathoms, lat. 78° 5' N., long. 2° 30′ W.; Antarctic Ocean, 1,975 fathoms, lat. 62° 26' S., long. 95° 44′ E.

In 1899 Lieut.-Com. H. M. Hodges, in United States surveying ship Nero, sounded the greatest known depths in a submarine valley of the Pacific, which was christened "Nero Deep." The soundings reached 5,160 fathoms (30,960 feet,) and 5,269 fathoms (31,614 feet). The temperatures were 35.9 at 5,070 fathoms and 36 at 5,101 fathoms.

THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

Recent research has brought to light some interesting facts regarding the bottom of the sea. Scientists tell us that if the surface of the sea were lowered six thousand feet the width of the Atlantic and Pacific opposite the United States and South America would not be materially lessened, but a continent larger than Africa would appear about the South Pole, while North America would

be connected with the British Isles and Europe through Greenland and Iceland, and with Asia in the region of Behring Strait by broad plains inclosing a landlocked Arctic Ocean about as large as the Mediterranean. Again, if the sea were lowered twice that depth, or two and a half miles, the Atlantic would be divided into an eastern and a western basin by a narrow strip of land extending southward from Iceland to the latitude of Cape of

P

3000 FATHOMS 4000 FATHOME 5000 FATHOMS 05269 FATHOMS

WHERE THE DEEPEST PLACES ARE IN THE OCEAN.

The round black spot indicates the greatest depth yet found. It is probably six miles. The light shading designates a depth of 3,000 fathoms, the heavy shading a depth of 4,000 fathoms, and the asterisk a depth of 5,000 fathoms.

Good Hope, while the Pacific would be separated into a larger and a smaller basin by a narrow land connection between northern Chile and the East Indies. If the sea were lowered another mile, however, (or 18,000 feet) the oceans as such would disappear, and be represented by a great sea in the northern Pacific, a smaller one in the southern Atlantic, and several small pools between the Americas and Africa. The sea is comparatively shallow between Newfoundland and Ireland. Most of the Mediterranean is over a mile deep, but if its surface were lowered only eight hundred feet it would be separated