178 



THE OCEAN. 



with one anotlier, and thus to allow ships to make long sea- voyages 

 completely sheltered from storms. Even the marigots of Guinea, 

 which spread parallel to the shore, have at all times served to facili- 

 tate traffic between the peoples of the coast ; but it is said that 

 these marshy canals are gradually being filled up, either by the ac- 

 tivity of the vegetation, or because of the sand wliich the wiud of 

 the desert transports thither.* 



Much less extensive than the banks of the Gulf of Mexico and of 

 Carolina, those of the eastern Baltic are not less curious by the geo- 

 metrical regularity of their forms, and, besides, they have been the 

 object of long and serious study. Three great rivers, the Oder, the 

 Vistula, and the Niemen, discharge themselves each into a vast 

 lagune or Ilaff {hafen, port), which a narrow tongue of land, called 

 there a Nehnmg, separates from the open sea. The haff oi the Oder, 



Fig. 79— Coasts of Dantzig and Pillau. 



the entrance to which is guarded by the town of Swinemiinde, 



is already in great part filled up by mud. The Curiche Haff, or 



* Borghero, Bulletin de la Societe Geographies July, 1866. 



