"Yes, I heard him say it was a little short of two miles deep, so it has got a long way to sink before it reaches its oozy bed."
"How d'ee know what sort o' bed it's got to lie on?" asked Slagg.
"Because," said Robin, "the whole Atlantic where the cable is to lie has been carefully sounded long ago, and it is found that the ocean-bed here, which looks so like mud, is composed of millions of beautiful shells, so small that they cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. Of course, they have no creatures in them. It would seem that these shell-fish go about the ocean till they die, and then fall to the bottom like rain." See note one.
"You don't say so!" returned Slagg, who, being utterly uneducated, received suchlike information with charming surprise, and regarded Robin as a very mine of
