Men have ever been strangely charmed by the unknown and the seemingly inaccessible. The astronomer exhibits the influence of this charm as he constructs larger and larger telescopes, that he may penetrate more and more deeply beyond the veil which conceals the greater part of the universe from the unaided eye. The geologist, seeking to piece together the fragmentary records of the past which the earth’s surface presents to him, is equally influenced by the charm of mystery and difficulty. And the microscopist who tries to force from nature the secret of the infinitely little, is led on by the same strange desire to discover just those matters which nature has been most careful to conceal from us.

The energy with which in recent times men have sought to master the problem of deep-sea sounding and deep-sea dredging is, perhaps, one of the most striking instances ever afforded of the charm which the unknown possesses for mankind. Not long ago, one of the most eminent geographers of the sea spoke regretfully about the small knowledge men have obtained of the depths of ocean. ‘Greater difficulties,’ he remarked, ‘than any presented by the problem of deep-sea research have been overcome in other branches of physical inquiry. Astronomers have measured the volumes and weighed the masses of the most distant planets, and increased thereby the stock of human knowledge. Is it creditable to the age that the depths of the sea should remain in the category of unsolved problems? that its “ooze and bottom” should be a sealed volume, rich with ancient and eloquent legends and suggestive of many an instructive lesson that might be useful and profitable to man?‘

Since that time, however, deep-sea dredging has gradually become more and more thoroughly understood and mastered. When the telegraphic cable which had lain so many months at the bottom of the Atlantic was hauled on board the ‘Great Eastern’ from enormous depths, men were surprised and almost startled by the narrative. The appearance of the ooze-covered cable as it was slowly raised towards the surface, and the strange thrill which ran through those who saw it and remembered through what mysterious depths it had twice passed; its breaking away almost from the very hands of those who sought to draw it on board; and the successful renewal of the attempt to recover the cable,—all these things were heard of as one listens to a half-incredible tale. Yet when that work was accomplished deep-sea dredging had already been some time a science, and many things had been achieved by its professors which presented, in reality, greater practical difficulties than the recovery of the Atlantic Cable.

Recently, however, deep-sea researches have been carried on with results which are even more sensational, so to speak, than the grappling feat which so surprised us. Seas so deep that many of the loftiest summits of the Alps might be completely buried beneath them have been explored. Dredges weighing with their load of mud nearly half a ton have been hauled up without a hitch from depths of some 14,000 feet. But not merely has comparatively rough work of this sort been achieved, but by a variety of ingenious contrivances men of science have been able to measure the temperature of the sea at depths where the pressure is so enormous as to be equivalent to a weight of more than 430 tons on every square foot of surface.

The results of these researches are even more remarkable and surprising, however, than the means by which they have been obtained. Sir Charles Lyell has fairly spoken of them as so astonishing ‘that they have to the geologist almost a revolutionary character.’ Let us consider a few of them.

No light can be supposed to penetrate to the enormous depth just spoken of. Therefore, how certainly we might conclude that there can be no life there. If, instead of dealing with the habitability of planets, Whewell, in his ‘Plurality of Worlds,’ had been considering the question whether at depths of two or three miles living creatures could subsist, how convincingly would he have proved the absurdity of such a supposition. Intense cold, perfect darkness, and a persistent pressure of two or three tons to the square inch,—such, he might have argued, are the conditions under which life exists, if at all, in those dismal depths. And even if he had been disposed to concede the bare possibility that life of some sort may be found there, then certainly, he would have urged, some new sense must replace sight—the creatures in these depths can assuredly have no eyes, or only rudimentary ones.

But the recent deep-sea dredgings have proved that not only does life exist in the very deepest parts of the Atlantic, but that the beings which live and move and have their being beneath three miles of water have eyes which the ablest naturalists pronounce to be perfectly developed. Light, then, of some sort must exist in those abysms, though whether the home of the deep-sea animals be phosphorescent, as Sir Charles Lyell suggests, or whether light reaches these creatures in some other way, we have no present means of determining.

If there is one theory which geologists have thought more justly founded than all others, it is the view that the various strata of the earth were formed at different times. A chalk district, for example, lying side by side with a sandstone district, has been referred to a totally different era. Whether the chalk was formed first, or whether the sandstone existed before the minute races came into being which formed the cretaceous stratum, might be a question. But no doubt existed in the minds of geologists that each formation belonged to a distinct period. Now, however, Dr. Carpenter and Professor Thomson may fairly say, ‘We have changed all this.’ It has been found that at points of the sea-bottom only eight or ten miles apart, there may be in progress the formation of a cretaceous deposit and of a sandstone region, each with its own proper fauna. ‘Wherever similar conditions are found upon the dry land of the present day,’ remarks Dr. Carpenter, ‘it has been supposed that the formation of chalk and the formation of sandstone must have been separated from each other by long periods, and the discovery that they may actually co-exist upon adjacent surfaces has done no less than strike at the very root of the customary assumptions with regard to geological time.’11

Even more interesting, perhaps, to many, are the results which have been obtained respecting the varying temperatures of deep-sea regions. The peculiarity just considered is, indeed, a consequence of such variations; but the fact itself is at least as interesting as the consequences which flow from it. It throws light on the long-standing controversy respecting the oceanic circulation. It has been found that the depths of the equatorial and tropical seas are colder than those of the North Atlantic. In the tropics the deep-sea temperature is considerably below the freezing-point of fresh water; in the deepest part of the Bay of Biscay the temperature is several degrees above the freezing-point. Thus one learns that the greater part of the water which lies deep below the surface of the equatorial and tropical seas comes from the Antarctic regions, though undoubtedly there are certain relatively narrow currents which carry the waters of the Arctic seas to the tropics. The great point to notice is that the water under the equatorial seas must really have travelled from polar regions. A cold of 30 degrees can be explained in no other way. We see at once, therefore, the explanation of those westerly equatorial currents which have been so long a subject of contest. Sir John Herschel failed to prove that they are due to the trade winds, but Maury failed equally to prove that they are due to the great warmth and consequent buoyancy of the equatorial waters. In fact, while Maury showed very convincingly that the great system of oceanic circulation is carried on despite the winds, Herschel proved in an equally convincing manner that the overflow conceived by Maury should result in an easterly instead of a westerly current. Recently the theory was put forward that the continual process of evaporation going on in the equatorial regions leads to an indraught of cold water in bottom-currents from the polar seas. Such currents coming towards the equator, that is, travelling from latitudes where the earth’s eastwardly motion is less to latitudes where that motion is greater, would lag behind, that is, would have a westwardly motion. It seems now placed beyond a doubt that this is the true explanation of the equatorial ocean-currents.

Such are a few, and but a few, among the many interesting results which have followed from the recent researches of Dr. Carpenter and Professor Thomson into the hitherto little-known depths of the great sea.

(From the Spectator, December 4, 1869.)