INTRACONTINENTAL SEAS iii 



while much of the depth is less than loo meters. In the Bothnian 

 Gulf the deeper parts lie between lOO and i6o meters, while the 

 greater part has a depth of less than 90 meters. Finally, the Finnish 

 Gulf, with the exception noted, does not reach the 100-meter line, 

 while much of it has a depth of less than 50 meters. The Persian 

 Gulf, with a maximum depth of 90 meters, is the only land-locked 

 epicontinental sea tributary to the Indian Ocean, but several other 

 Eurasian epicontinental seas of the land-locked type are tributary to 

 the Arctic Ocean. The larger of these are the White Sea, with a 

 maximum depth of 329 meters, but mostly above 200 meters, and 

 the Gulf of Obi in Siberia. In the Pacific the only land-locked epi- 

 continental sea is the Huang-hai or Yellow Sea, of China. This sea 

 has a rather broad opening into the East Chinese Sea and its margin 

 does not rise perceptibly above the general level of its floor, which 

 is from 80 to 90 meters below sea-level. Still there are a few de- 

 pressions of a little more than 100 meters, the maximum being 106 

 meters, opposite the southern end of the Korean peninsula. The 

 Gulf of Carpentaria in North Australia is another epicontinental sea 

 partly land-locked, but with a broad opening toward the north. The 

 average depth is from 50 to 60 meters, and this continues north- 

 ward in the shallow Arafura Sea between Australia and New 

 Guinea. Among the islands which separate this sea from the 

 Banda mediterranean on the northwest are several deep holes, some 

 of them descending below the 2,000-meter line. 



On the eastern shore of the Pacific, Cook Inlet in Alaska and 

 Georgia Straits in British Columbia are examples of land-locked 

 epicontinental seas of very small size. The latter has a hole 316 

 meters deep opposite Vancouver, but is generally quite shallow, as 

 is also Cook Inlet. Another small water body of this type is San 

 Francisco Bay, while marginal epicontinental seas of small size also 

 occur on the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. An aberrant 

 type of the marginal epicontinental sea is found in the Rann of 

 Cutch, Bombay, west coast of India. This is very shallow, and as 

 it lies within the belt of great evaporation, it has practically been 

 converted into a salina or salt pan. 



In the Arctic Ocean system are several epicontinental seas of 

 the marginal type, besides the land-locked types already mentioned 

 (White Sea and Gulf of Obi). Melville Sound in Arctic North 

 America is probably to be classed here, though its central area 

 descends below the 200-meter line. The Kara Sea, behind Nova 

 Zembla, is another but more open marginal sea, though in its west- 

 ern end a hole 730 meters deep is recorded. The largest sea of this 

 class connected with the Arctic Ocean is the East Spitzbergen, or 



