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  • Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea-gash, which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing. The very ribs of the solid earth, with the foundations of the sea, would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us at one view the empty cradle of the ocean.

    Matthew Fontaine Maury, United States Naval Observatory (1858). “Explanations and sailing directions to accompany the Wind and current charts: approved by Captain D. N. Ingraham, chief of the Bureau of ordnance and hydrography, and pub. by authority of Hon. Isaac Toucey, secretary of the Navy”, p.167
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