to 748 fathoms. Judging from the contour of the Atlantic basin, and the known
course of the Gulf Stream, which at the present day sweeps directly along this
200-mile longitudinal tract, an increase and not a decrease of depth might
naturally have been expected. I t is necessary for me to state that the selection
of the spot at which the 748-fathom sounding was taken bore no reference whatever
to the question now at issue, but rather to the extreme difficulties attending
the operation of sounding at all during the tempestuous weather the ship encountered,
and that such decrease in depth was wholly unlooked fo r : and hence,
although the allusion to such a depth as being shoal water may appear
somewhat inappropriate, it must be borne in mind that nothing could be more
unlikely than that a spot so selected should represent the shallowest water, or
that we should find least depth at two degrees northward of the point indicated
in the old charts, and which, if it ever existed as dry land, must have been the
most elevated and therefore the last submerged portion of the tract in question.
AVhen we take into consideration that Sir John Boss sounded only to a depth
of 180 fathoms without striking bottom, and that until a very recent date the
idea of systematically surveying depths estimated by thousands instead of
hundreds of fathoms was never entertained, it becomes easy to account for the
failure of those navigators who deny the existence of any submerged land, to
trace either its position or its boundaries.
I t is much more probable that spots occur along this submerged tract on
which the depth of water is reduced far below that indicated by the sounding,
than that the shallowest point should have been accidentally struck; and even
supposing that no very considerable diminution should be met with, and that it
becomes necessary to assume a subsidence of several hundred feet at the spot
last submerged, the case would by no means be without parallel. On the
contrary, taking as our examples Sweden in the one direction, and Greenland
in the other, ample geological evidence can be adduced to prove that gradual
elevation in the one case, and gradual subsidence in the other, have been and
continue in operation. In Sweden, we find that land now elevated several
hundred feet above the present sea-level must once have constituted the bed of
the ocean. Were it possible to observe the traces of ancient water-levels on the
now submerged slopes of the Greenland fiords, the evidence would, no doubt,
show that depressions, equalling in degree any that may be considered necessary
in order to account for the “ sunken land ” under notice, have taken place, not
under the operation of sudden volcanic convulsions, but as the result of a gradual
process acting uninterruptedly through vast periods of time. I t is somewhat
singular that Captain Graah, who was the foremost to repudiate the idea of an
island or shoal having existed in the locality assigned to it, should, in 1823,
have been the first to notice the extensive subsidence that had taken place along
the western shores of Greenland*.
Lastly, it must not be forgotten that, within the memory of man, one if not
two islands have been raised up out of the sea, and again submerged, off the
south-west coast of Iceland, in a line which, if extended, would very nearly
intersect the position assigned to the “ sunken land of B u s s a n d although, as
before stated, active volcanic disturbance is not requisite to produce the effect in
question, there is more likelihood of its taking place in regions subject to such
disturbances than in regions never under this influence.
I shall have occasion, in a future chapter, to draw attention to the evidences
afforded by certain creatures, whose normal habitats are in comparatively
shallow zones, having become acclimatized, perhaps through a long series of
generations, and rendered capable of maintaining existence at depths vastly in
excess of those which may be regarded as normal in other latitudes. One
example is drawn from the west coast of Greenland, in lat. 64° 14' N .; the other
from a point about midway between the most southern part of Greenland and
Bockall, in lat. 59° 27', long. 26°40'AV. In now drawing attention to these two
cases, I am desirous of showing that, in-espective of the facts akeady noticed,
there are circumstances which render it probable that subsidence has taken
place, and is still taking place, along the tract in question, and, further, that the
lino of subsidence between South Greenland and Bockall, thus indicated, tallies
in a very remarkable manner with the ancient boundary line suggested by Sir John
Eichardson, and acquiesced in by the late Professor Edward Forbes, on independent
grounds, as marking the northern limit of the Atlantic at the period at
which it was separated from the great Arctic basin. In the concluding portion
of ‘ The Natural History of the Em-opean Seas,’ Mr. E. Godwin-Austeu thus
describes the boundary in question:—“ A line from Newfoundland to Cape
“ Farewell, thence across the Atlantic of Iceland and the Faroe Archipelago,
* See Sir Charles Lycll’s ‘ Principles Geology.’ London, 1853, p. 530.
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