THE BLACK SEA 



453 



would lose their connection with the Sea, being separated from it by a bar ; 

 their salinity would rise to saturation with lake salt, and black oily ooze rich 

 in iron compounds, used in modern times for medical purposes, would be 

 formed. Communication with the Sea might be established by an inrush of the 

 Sea through the bar and to a certain degree by the percolation of sea-water 

 through it. The suspension of river water supply to the inlets might, in the 

 final account, lead to a complete drying up and the formation of a solonetz. 



Fig. 216. Inlets of the northwest part of the Black Sea (Markovsky). 1 Dniester inlet ; 



2 Kutchurgansky inlet; 3 Khadzhibeysky inlet; 4 Kuyal'nitsky ; 5 Tiligulsky; 



6 Berezanksy ; 7 Dnieprovsky ; 8 Bug inlet. 



The population of the inlets gives a clear picture of a mixture of the euryhaline 

 marine (Mediterranean) fauna with a relict, Pontic, brackish-water fauna of 

 the Caspian type and with fresh- water immigrants. The marine fauna of the 

 inlets, qualitatively impoverished, and usually of a smaller size, does not, 

 however, form dense settlements. On the other hand, an abundance of relict 

 Pontic forms is observed in the inlets, which creates, in V. Sovinsky's expres- 

 sion (1902) 'a similarity between the fauna of the northwestern area (Gulf of 

 Odessa) and that of the Caspian Sea'. 'We can consider', wrote A. Ostroumov 

 (1897), 'the Bug inlet as a corner of the Pliocene basin, thrown up into the 

 mainland and slightly renovated.' 



Mordukhai-Boltovskoy (1961) points out that about 120 species of the 



