THE EAliTH AND ITS INHABITANTS. 



AUSTRALASIA. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE OCEANIC HEMISPHERE. 



OMPARED with the collective body of marine waters, the Atlantic 

 Ocean may be regarded as a mere " Mediterranean," or Inland 

 Sea. As the " boundless " expanse on which the Grreek mariners 

 first timidly ventured was found to be a " closed sea," or simple 

 landlocked basin, according as seafarers gradually explored its 

 contracted seaboard between Europe and Africa, in the same way the more for- 

 midable Atlantic itself, only four centuries ago still held to be limitless, has in its 

 turn proved to be a mere winding valley between the two halves of the con- 

 tinental lands constituting the Old and the New Worlds. Northwards this deep 

 trough is separated by Greenland and Iceland from the cavities of the polar 

 waters; east and west the shores of Europe and North America, as well as those 

 of Africa and South America, roughly correspond in the contours and indentations 

 of their coastline, which at the narrowest point, between Carabane and Cape 

 St. Roque, are separated only by an interval of 1,800 miles. But southwards the 

 Atlantic spreads out broadly, here merging in the greater oceanic basin which 

 encompasses the whole periphery of the globe. 



Extent and Formation of the Oceanic Basin. 



Excluding the Atlantic with its lateral inlets and the island- studded and ice- 

 obstructed Arctic waters encircled by the Asiatic and American seaboards, the 



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