The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

2 THE NORTH-EAST ATLANTIC.islands, St. George's and English Channels, the North Sea and the Baltic.Besides the great plateau of the British Isles there are others of smaller extent,including those of Rockall, the Fiiroer, Iceland, and Jan Mayen. From Scotlandto Greenland there extends a submarine isthmus, whose elevation has not yet beenquite determined, but whose lowest parts between the Orkneys and the Fiiroerbank are less than 380 fathoms below the surface of the water, with a mean depthof 270 fathoms between the Fiiroer and Iceland. This last section seems to be ofvolcanic origin, and it is probable that submarine action has contributed to theseparation of the North Atlantic waters into two distinct basins. The Bockallplateau is connected with the Hebrides by a ridge with a mean depth of 820fathoms—about the same as that of the entire eastern basin between Iceland andNorway, or one-third of the approximate depth of all the oceanic waters.It was formerly supposed that the Northern Ocean diminished in depth asit approached the pole, but the Swedish exploration of 1868 has entirelyexploded this idea. About 180 miles west of Spitzbergen the plummet measured2,650 fathoms, and in the highest latitudes where soundings have been taken adepth of 1,370 fathoms has been revealed. Scoresby found 1,176 fathoms betweenSpitzbergen and Jan Mayen in 1818, so that northwards as well as southwardsthe shallow European waters are bounded by deep troughs.The polar icebergs, advancing more or less southwards with the alternations ofthe seasons, also form a natural line of separation for the European basins. It isremarkable that the bed of the ocean presents in its reliefs features analogous tothose of the neighbouring continents. Were the waters to subside 1,000 fathoms,there would be revealed two peninsulas between Europe and Greenland, projectingsouthwards like those of Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. And were afurther subsidence of 1,000 fathoms to take place, it would disclose east ofNewfoundland another and more extensive peninsula, with numerous secondaryramifications, also stretching southwards, while the ridge now separating thewestern and eastern oceanic basins would appear as an isthmus connecting thenorthern lands with a vast peninsula similarly extending north and south beyondthe Azores. According to mediaeval legends formerly figured on marine chartsas ascertained facts, one of these submerged peninsulas was still visible above thesurface when the earliest seafarers visited these regions. The vanished land borethe name of the " drowned land of Buss," and it has by some been associated withthe island of Finlandia, discovered by the Venetian brothers Zeno at the end ofthe fourteenth century, but which has since been sought for in vain.The movements of the Atlantic, like those of other seas, are due to variouscauses, but are distinguished by their vast proportions and lack of uniformity.Although the phenomena they present have nowhere else been more carefullystudied, many problems still remain to be determined. For their solution more isneeded than a knowledge of the surface waters ; account must be also taken of thecounter-currents, of the varying temperature and saline character of the oceanthroughout its entire depth.Thanks to their daily recurrence, the normal course of the tides is much