Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/332

306 of experience show that, as a general rule, the under currents of the deep sea have force enough to take the line out long after the plummet has ceased to do so. Consequently, there is but little reliance to be placed upon deep-sea soundings of former methods, when the depths reported exceeded eight or ten thousand feet.

563. Various methods tried or proposed.—Attempts to fathom the ocean, both by sound and pressure, had been made, but out in "blue water" every trial was only "a failure repeated. The most ingenious and beautiful contrivances for deep-sea soundings were resorted to. By exploding petards, or ringing bells in the deep sea, when the winds were hushed, and all was still, the echo or reverberation from the bottom might, it was held, be heard, and the depth determined from the rate at which sound travels through water. But, though the concussion took place many feet below the surface, echo was silent, and no answer was received from the bottom. Ericsson and others constructed deep-sea leads having a column of air in them, which, by compression, would show the aqueous pressure to which they might be subjected. This was found to answer well for ordinary purposes, but in the depths of the sea, where the pressure would be equal to several hundred atmospheres, the trial was more than this instrument could stand. Mr. Baur, an ingenious mechanician of New York, constructed, according to a plan which I furnished him, a deep-sea sounding apparatus. To the lead was attached, upon the principle of the screw propeller, a small piece of clockwork for registering the number of revolutions made by the little screw during the descent, and it having been ascertained by experiment in shoal water that the apparatus, in descending, would cause the propeller to make one revolution for every fathom of perpendicular descent, hands provided with the power of self-registration were attached to a dial, and the instrument was complete. It worked beautifully in moderate depths, but failed in blue water, from the difficulty of hauling it up if the line used were small, and from the difficulty of getting it down if the line used were large enough to give the requisite strength for hauling it up. An old sea-captain proposed a torpedo, such as is sometimes used in the whale fishery for blowing up the monsters of the deep, only this one was intended to explode on touching the bottom. It was proposed first to ascertain by actual experiment the rate at which the torpedo would sink, and the rate at which the sound or the gas would ascend, and so, by timing the