CHAPTER XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST. "Well, Lieutenant, how goes the sounding?" "Pretty lively, Captain; we're nearly through;" replied the Lieutenant. "But it's a tremendous depth so near land. We can't be more than 250 miles from the California coast." "The depression certainly is far deeper than I had expected," observed Captain Bloomsbury. "We have probably lit on a submarine valley channelled out by the Japanese Current." "The Japanese Current, Captain?" "Certainly; that branch of it which breaks on the western shores of North America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama." "That may account for it, Captain,"