FOUNTAINS UNDER THE SEA.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 6, 23 January 1912, Page 2

FOUNTAINS UNDER THE SEA.

It',was at the captain’s table on an Atlantic liner that a young woman idly inquired just how far the ship was from the nearest land. Several passengers would have said oS-hand, “About 800 miles.-*’ But the captain referred the question to a quiet gentleman, who looked at his watch and a chart, and amazed his hearers by answering, '“Just about 70 yards.’’ “The land I speak of,” continued the captain’s friend, ‘"is just 36 fathoms beneath the ship. It is the summit of the Laura Ethel mountain which is 20,000 feet above the lowest level of the Atlantic basin. If it were some two hundred feet higher, or the sea were 200 feet lower, you would call it an island.” The Laura Ethel mountain, discovered in 1878, is the uppermost peak of one of the most celebrated of the submarine elevations in the Atlantic.- Mount Chaucer, - at the eastward of it; was revealed to oceanographers in 1850. Sainthill, which is westward of both, has the honour to be the first mountain discovered in the Atlantic. It became known to science in 1832. There are cavernous depths, of course, in the Atlantic, as well as majestic heights. Four miles-and a half may be taken to be the greatest The average is probably aborit two English miles.—'“Scientific American'.’