The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

And the little that has been known of the ocean has been chiefly of its surface, of the winds that blow over it, and the waves that are lifted up on high. We knew somewhat of its tides and currents as observed in different parts of the earth. We saw off our coast the great Gulf Stream--that steady flow of waters, so mighty and mysterious, which, issuing out of the tropical regions, poured its warm current, sixty miles broad, right through the cold waters of the North Atlantic; and sweeping round, sent the airs of a softer climate over all the countries of Western Europe. Old voyagers told us of the trade-winds that blew across the Pacific, and of terrible monsoons in China and Indian seas. But all that did not reveal what was going on a hundred fathoms below the surface. These old sailors had marvellous tales of Indian pearl-divers, who, holding their breath, plunged to the depth of a few hundred feet; but they came up half-dead, with but little to tell except of the frightful monsters of the deep. The diving-bell was let down over sunken wrecks, but the divers came up only with tales of riches and ruin, of gold and gems and dead men's bones that lay mingled together on the deep sea floor. Was the bottom of the sea all like this? Was it a vast realm of death, the sepulchre of the world? No man could tell us. Poets might sing of the caves of ocean, but no eye of science had yet penetrated those awful depths, which the storms never reach.