THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



29 



its easternmost bound in Europe it is extended, 

 moreover, along the whole of the northern coastline 

 of Asia, onwards to the Icy Cape. It would appear 

 also to be intimately connected as a zoological pro- 

 vince with the seas of Kamtschatka and Ockhotsz, 

 which, as we shall see hereafter, share in its fauna, 

 carried down on the western side of the North 

 Pacific to equal latitudes, and with a similar distri- 

 bution to that which it exhibits on the western side 

 of the North Atlantic. Unlike all other marine 

 zoological provinces, unless there be an exception in 

 the Antarctic regions, it is continuous, and belts the 

 globe around the North Pole 5 not, however, with 

 an even circular boundary, but as we have seen, 

 with a variable and undulating edge. Wherever 

 arms of the sea branch from it, they carry its fauna 

 and flora with them, to the exclusion of all other 

 populations. Of this the White Sea presents a most 

 instructive example, for extending inland from that 

 portion of the Arctic province where the Arctic 

 Circle is rather without than within its bounds, this 

 great offset of the Arctic Ocean carries its peculiar 

 fauna and flora into the heart of the land, and 

 beyond their natural bounds, placing them, as it 

 were, side by side with the population of the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, which, extending from the Baltic, itself an 

 arm of the Celtic province, carries the remnants 

 of a fauna exclusively Celtic, to the verge of the 

 Arctic Circle. 



The region in which the sea is permanently frozen 



