xviii.] LAND AND WATER. 301 



there are numerous smaller islands, such as the Hebrides, 

 the Orkneys, and the Shetlands. There are a few small 

 islands off the eastern and the southern coasts; but only 

 one, the Isle of Wight, is of sufficient magnitude to make 

 it worth mention. Soundings, taken in the seas which 

 surround the group of British islands, show that they all 

 rise from a sort of submarine plain, which slopes gradually 

 downwards, from the eastward, to the westward. In the 

 German Ocean and the British Channel, as the seas in 

 the east and south are termed, the depth of water rarely 

 exceeds fifty fathoms (300 feet) ; and, to reach a general 

 depth of as much as 100 fathoms, we must sail many miles 

 to the north of the Shetlands ; or to the west of the 

 Hebrides and Ireland ; or still further to the south and 

 west of Cornwall. (Fig. 90, p. 302.) ^ 



This shelving plateau is a westward continuation of 

 the shores of Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and 

 France, which form a continuous coast line to the eastward 

 of Britain. They are separated from it by an extent of sea, 

 which is very narrow (twenty-one miles) at the straits 

 of Dover, but gradually widens to the northeast and south- 

 west of that point. 



On crossing this narrow strait, the traveller sets foot upon 

 the largest continuous mass of land in the world. Starting 

 thence towards the east, and bearing a little to the north, he 

 might travel for more than 7,000 miles, through northern 

 Europe and Siberia, without seeing the sea, until he struck 

 upon its shores in Behring's Straits ; at the narrowest part of 

 which, he would be separated, by only thjrty-six miles, from 

 the opposite shore of North America. A more circuitous 

 route, through Eastern Russia, and then, by way of Armenia 

 and Syria, to Egypt, would enable the pedestrian to travel 

 ^ From De la Beche's Researches in Th oretical Geology. 



