THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



81 



who still remain in fragmentary masses, as if to 

 show what and where they once were. These varied 

 natural-history features, combined in the Celtic pro- 

 vince, render it of all European areas that most 

 interesting to the zoologist and botanist ; from their 

 abundance and interest, they incite the human in- 

 habitants to the study of the living creatures ga- 

 thered so profusely around them : hence it is, that, 

 in spite of all the discouragement just alluded to, 

 in no part of the world has marine natural history 

 been so thoroughly pursued as in Britain. 



The area of the Celtic region has its southern 

 limits about Cape Finisterre, and at the entrance of 

 the English Channel. All the German Ocean, with 

 the exception of a belt skirting the southern coasts 

 of Norway, may be said to belong to it, and all the 

 seas immediately around the British islands, except- 

 ing about Zetland. The Baltic appears to be an 

 arm or extension of it, carrying its fauna far to the 

 north of its normal limits. A great part of this 

 region is comparatively shallow. Very deep water 

 (depths below the hundred-fathom line) approaches 

 nearly the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland. 

 These abyssal gulfs probably limit this extension of 

 the characteristic Celtic fauna. Occasional tracts 

 of very deep water, ravines, or pits, as it were, such 

 as the line of deep below 100 fathoms, between Gallo- 

 way and the opposite coasts of Ireland, here and there 

 occur. In the instance mentioned, an insulated 

 ravine, its sides from 60 to 80 fathoms below the 



G 



