INTRACONTINENTAL SEAS 109 



The Indian Ocean has only the Red Sea as a contributory land- 

 locked marginal mediterranean, in addition to which there is a very 

 open* and incomplete marginal mediterranean, the Durma or Anda- 

 man Sea, between the Malay peninsula and the Andaman and Nico- 

 bar Island groups. The maximum recorded depth here is 4,177 

 meters, but much of its deeper part lies between 2,000 and 3,000 

 meters below sea-level. Whether or not mediterraneans exist off the 

 southern borders of the three great oceans is at present unknown. 

 The Arctic Ocean has only one large marginal mediterranean, but 

 several epicontinental seas. The mediterranean type is represented 

 by the East Greenland Sea, lying between Greenland and Scandi- 

 navia, and Iceland and Spitzbergen. This has a maximum known 

 depth of 4,846 meters between North Greenland and Spitzbergen, its 

 connection with the Arctic being by channels 2,000 meters deep. 

 The deepest part of its submerged southern l)order is 550 meters 

 in Denmark Straits, but much of this border is shallow. (Fig. 18.) 



Intcroccanic mediterraneans. The East Greenland Sea and Baf- 

 fin Bay are interoceanic inediterrancans, i. e., lying between the 

 Atlantic and the Arctic, one belonging to each. Behring Sea is an 

 interoceanic mediterranean which lies between the Arctic and the 

 Pacific, but belongs to the latter. The xA.ustral-Asian group is inter- 

 oceanic between the Pacific and the Indian oceans, while the Red 

 Sea has been artificially made interoceanic between the Indian and 

 Atlantic systems by the building of the Suez Canal, and the Carib- 

 bean mediterranean will soon be placed in this class also. 



In general, mediterraneans may be considered in the light of mi- 

 nute oceans, with the essential bathymetric zones found in these, 

 i. e., abyssal, littoral, and pelagic. The characteristic independent 

 ocean currents are, however, wanting, though parts or branches of 

 these currents may occur, as, for example, the Gulf Stream in the 

 Central American mediterraneans, and the branch streams entering 

 the Roman mediterranean. 



2. Epicontinental Seas. These are the shallow independent seas, 

 the greatest depth of which does not pass much below 200 fathoms, 

 or, if so, in only a few isolated spots. These have, therefore, only 

 a lit'toral and a pelagic zone, the abyssal being absent. Both land- 

 locked and marginal epicontinental seas occur; the former, when 

 situated in a region of normal pluvial climate, generally falling in 

 percentage of salinity below that of the open sea, owing to the 

 abundant influx of fresh water. Examples of the land-locked epi- 

 continental seas are Hudson Bay in North America, and the Baltic 

 with its branches, the Bothnian and the Finnish gulfs, in Europe. 

 Both of these are tributary to the Atlantic system. Hudson Bay 



