CHAPTER VI. 



THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN" (GULF OF MEXICO AND CARIBBEAN SEA). 



LTHOUGH far more open to the ocean than the Mediterranean 

 between Europe and Africa, the inland sea separating the two 

 American continents is none the less a well-defined marine basin, 

 presenting a group of phenomena which constitute it a separate 

 natural region on the surface of the globe. The parting-line 

 between the inner waters of the New World and the Atlantic Ocean is even more 

 sharply indicated than might appear at first sight to be the case. Thus the chain 

 of islands which describes a vast semicircle round the east side of the Caribbean 

 Sea, as well as those almost closing the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, rest on a 

 common submarine bed, whose scarps sink abruptly towards the Atlantic to depths 

 of over 2,000 fathoms. The Bahamas and Lesser Antilles represent plateaux 

 rising here and there above the surface between two profound chasms. The only 

 passages which attain a depth of 500 fathoms between the inner and outer waters 

 are the AYindward Channel, between Cuba and Haiti, and a few openings in the 

 chain of the Lesser Antilles, 



Taken as a whole, the inland sea is divided into two natural basins, whose limits 

 are indicated by the Yucatan peninsula and the island of Cuba. To the north-west 

 lies the Gulf of Mexico, to the south-east the Caribbean Sea, each of which is again 

 divided into two distinct sections. The Gulf, so remarkable for the regularity of 

 its contour lines and the uniform level of its bed, presents on its east side an outer 

 basin of triangular shape comprised between Cuba, the Florida peninsula, and the 

 Bahama I>lands. Similarly, the Caribbean Sea, enclosed south-eastwards by the 

 deep oval amphitheatre stretching from Jamaica through the Antilles round to the 

 Venezuelan mainland, develops north-westwards towards the Gulf an extremely 

 irregular secondary basin between Cuba, Honduras, and Yucatan, a basin of vary- 

 ing depths, intersected by submarine banks, and presenting several profound 

 cavities. The main axis of both seas is disposed in the direction from north-west 

 to south-east between the parallel lines of Central America and the Lesser 

 Antilles. 



Progress or Explorations — Soundings. 



These American waters are amongst the best known on the surface of the globe. 

 Their systematic exploration began in 1872 on the west side of Florida under the 



