n THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEEP SEA 67 



is much greater than that from the Atlantic under 

 corresponding parallels ; secondly, that the rainfall 

 over the Mediterranean makes up for evaporation 

 less than it does over the Atlantic ; and thirdly, 

 supposing these two questions answered affirm 

 atively : Are not these sources of loss in the 

 Mediterranean fully covered by the prodigious 

 quantity of fresh water which is poured into it by 

 great rivers and submarine springs ? Consider 

 that the water of the Ebro, the Rhine, the Po, the 

 Danube, the Don, the Dnieper, and the Nile, all 

 flow directly or indirectly into the Mediterranean ; 

 that the volume of fresh water which they pour 

 into it is so enormous that fresh water may some 

 times be baled up from the surface of the sea off 

 the Delta of the Nile, while the land is not yet in 

 sight ; that the water of the Black Sea is half fresh, 

 and that a current of three or four miles an hour 

 constantly streams from it Mediterraneanwards 

 through the Bosphorus; consider, in addition, 

 that no fewer than ten submarine springs of fresh 

 water are known to burst up in the Mediterranean, 

 some of them so large that Admiral Smyth calls 

 them &quot; subterranean rivers of amazing volume and 

 force &quot; ; and it would seem, on the face of the 

 matter, that the sun must have enough to do to 

 keep the level of the Mediterranean down ; and 

 that, possibly, we may have to seek for the cause 

 of the small superiority in saline contents of the 

 Mediterranean water in some condition other than 

 solar evaporation. 



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