The World's Deepest Spot
1899 AD
1899 1899
145.00E18.00N
NAT

BELOW THE PACIFIC OCEAN
	If you took the tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, and set it down at one particular spot in the Pacific Ocean, all five-and-a-half miles of its height would disappear beneath the waves.  And if you dived down to reach its peak, you would have to descend more than a mile.
	This spot is called the Marianas Trench, and at its deepest point, 36,198 feet, is the lowest spot on the surface of the earth.  The trench, about 45 miles wide at its maximum, begins about 200 miles south of Guam and curves northeast for about 1,835 miles towards Japan.
	The trench was discovered by the British exploration ship, Challenger, during its survey of the Pacific floor in 1874-75.
	On January 23, 1960 Lt. Don Walsh of the US Navy and French scientist Jacques Piccard descended 35,800 feet in a bathyscaphe -- a submarine-like vessel -- to the floor of Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the trench.