6 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



Australasia is therefore situated wholly within the water 

 hemisphere, and many of its islands are surrounded hy 

 an ocean which is not only the most extensive, but the 

 deepest in the world. 



The Pacific Ocean is deepest north of the equator, 

 where soundings of from 15,000 to 18,000 feet have 

 been obtained over extensive areas, showing the existence 

 of an enormous basin between Japan and San Francisco. 

 Between the Philippines and the Ladrones a depth of 

 nearly 27,000 feet has been obtained, and close to Japan 

 as much as 23,400. But both these have been exceeded at 

 a spot a little to the south of Simusir Island in the Kurile 

 chain, where a depth of 27,930 feet, or about 5^ miles, 

 was found — the greatest as yet recorded. In the South 

 Pacific the depths appear to vary between 10,000 and 

 17,000 feet; but here, too, the deepest soundings have 

 for the most part been obtained near the larger land 

 masses, as between Sydney and ISTew Zealand (15,600 

 feet) and a little south-east of New Guinea (14,700), 

 though very deep basins of small extent are found else- 

 where. Such, for instance, are shown by the soundings 

 of 19,866 feet near the Phoenix group, and 17,389 feet 

 between the Tonga and Hervey Islands. A comparatively 

 shallow sea extends round the coasts of Australia, which 

 gradually deepens, till at a distance of from 300 to 500 

 miles on the east, south, and west, the oceanic depth of 

 1 5,0 feet is attained. The sea which separates Australia 

 from New Guinea is very shallow, hardly exceeding eight 

 or nine fathoms in depth. The Banda, Celebes, and Sulu 

 Seas are all deep basins, affording maximum depths of 

 16,202, 15,600, and 15,298 feet respectively, and 

 another such basin occurs in the China Sea a little west 

 of Luzon, where soundings of 14,108 feet have been 

 recorded. In the western portion of the region we are 



