Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
We have called the Baltic the Mediterranean of the North, but it has no such depth as that classic inland sea, which finds its bed in a cleft of marvellous depression between Europe and Africa. One thousand fathoms of sounding-line off Gibraltar will not reach the bottom, and two thousand fathoms fail to find it a few miles east of Malta.
But some swift rivers, rolling mountains of fine earth, discharge themselves into deeply scooped gulfs or bays, and in such cases the deposit amounts, in the course of a few years, to a mass the transfer of which from the surface of a large basin, and its accumulation at a single point, may be supposed to produce other effects than those measurable by the sounding-line.
We took on board our pilot, ran slowly towards the harbour with the sounding-line dropping all the time, and came to a stop well out to sea, with our screws churning up the bottom and turning the sea all brown with sand from below.
This was an important achievement, because, having become familiar with the precise rate of descent at all depths, they were enabled to tell very nearly when the ball ceased to carry out the line, and when it began to go out in obedience to the influence of deep-sea currents. The greatest depth reached by Brooke's sounding-line is said to have been a little under five miles in the North Atlantic.
The sounding-line showed a fairly strong undercurrent to the north-west. "We panned out some of the mud," says Stenhouse, "and in the remaining grit found several specks of gold." Two days later the trend of the current was south- easterly. There was a pronounced thaw on the 22nd. The cabins were in a dripping state, and recently fallen snow was running off the ship in little streams.
It had seemed to me that the ship stopped rather suddenly, and in my ignorance of the depth of the harbour entrance, that perhaps the sounding-line had revealed a smaller depth than was thought safe for the great size of the Titanic: this seemed to be confirmed by the sight of sand churned up from the bottom but this is mere supposition.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen?
"Very well, Bronsfield," said the captain, "I will go and mark the result on my chart. Now have the sounding-line brought in that is a work of several hours. Meanwhile the engineer shall have his fires lighted, and we shall be ready to start as soon as you have done. It is 10 p.m., and with your permission, lieutenant, I shall turn in."
As this course would take us over new ground, Courtenay and I determined to remain on deck to pick up any information likely to be of use to us in the future; and I went to the helm, whilst my companion busied himself with the sounding-line.
This basin, which had a depth of eight fathoms, with a rocky bottom in its centre, terminated, at its inner extremity, in a short passage or channel about half a mile wide between two bold rocky bluffs, beyond which another large sheet of water was to be seen; and toward this the gig was headed, the sounding-line being kept busy during the whole progress.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking