HYDROGRAPHY OF THE MARINE WATERS 7 



Beaufort Inlet and the adjacent intersection of the sounds and "rivers" 

 afford a terminal for coastal, inland-water, and land transportation which 

 has resulted in the rise of Beaufort and Morehead City. This twin-city fish- 

 ing and general coastal port is quite distinct from the other sizeable North 

 Carolina ports which are more inland, up the larger estuaries, and have not 

 depended so definitely on marine enterprises. 



To the southwest from Bogue Inlet to the mouth of the Cape Fear River, 

 a distance of about 75 miles, the coast is fringed with numerous small, shallow 

 lagoons interrupted by marshes. Streams and creeks of varying volume flow 

 into these so-called sounds and several small inlets connect them with the sea. 

 A sizeable river. New River, drains across the marshes between Bogue Sound 

 and Stump Sound and into the ocean by way of New River Inlet. The larger 

 of these lagoons are Stump Sound to the northeast, then Topsail, Middle, 

 Masonboro, and finally Myrtle Sound to the southwest. The fisheries poten- 

 tialities of such waters are too varied for generalization since they differ so 

 much in area, depth, and drainage. 



There is very little open lagoon water westward along the coast from the 

 Cape Fear River to the State line about 32 miles away. The Inland Waterway, 

 which has continued southwestward through the sounds and marshes men- 

 tioned above, is cut through the marshes here, connecting eventually to 

 Charleston, South Carolina, and other southern ports. 



Gross Geography of the Continental Shelf 



A zone of relatively shallow water extending many miles from the coast- 

 line is a general characteristic of continental sea coasts (Figure 2). Typically, 

 as off North Carolina, this continental shelf has a gradual slope to about 100 

 fathoms (600 feet or 200 meters) where the gradient increases more or less 

 abruptly, forming a continental slope to the deep ocean basin. The shoulder 

 in the region of the loo-fathom contour is thus the real edge of the continent. 

 Experience and available knowledge indicate that it is the shelf waters inside 

 this contour that offer most of the known and anticipated offshore or so-called 

 deep-sea fisheries resources. The bulge in the coasthne of North Carolina is 

 not duplicated by the loo-fathom and other deep shelf contours; conse- 

 quently the area of the continental shelf off this state is relatively small, 

 especially when contrasted with extensive areas such as Georges Bank and 

 the Grand Bank, off New England and Newfoundland respectively. At Cape 

 Hatteras the loo-fathom contour is only 21 miles offshore. From here to the 

 Virginia line, where 100 fathoms lies 64 miles offshore, there are about 3,800 

 square miles of shelf area. From Hatteras to the South Carolina line, where 

 the loo-fathom contour lies 78 miles along an imaginary southeastward 



