6 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
Australasia is therefore situated wholly within the water 
hemisphere, and many of its islands are surrounded by 
an ocean which is not only the most extensive, but the 
deepest in the world. 
The Pacific Ocean is deepest north of the equator, 
where soundings of from 15,000 to 18,000 feet have 
been obtained over extensive areas, showing the existence 
of an enormous basin between Japan and San Francisco. 
Between the Philippines and the Ladrones a depth of 
nearly 27,000 feet has been obtained, and close to Japan 
as much as 2 3,40 0. But both these have been exceeded at 
a spot a little to the south of Simusir Island in the Kurile 
chain, where a depth of 27,930 feet, or about 5-|- miles, 
was found-—the greatest as yet recorded. In the South 
Pacific the depths appear to vary between 10,000 and 
17,000 feet; but here, too, the deepest soundings have 
for the most part been obtained near the larger land 
masses, as between Sydney and New Zealand (15,600 
feet) and a little south-east of New Guinea (14,700), 
though very deep basins of small extent are found else¬ 
where. Such, for instance, are shown by the soundings 
of 19,866 feet near the Phoenix group, and 17,389 feet 
between the Tonga and Hervey Islands. A comparatively 
shallow sea extends round the coasts of Australia, which 
gradually deepens, till at a distance of from 300 to 500 
miles on the east, south, and west, the oceanic depth of 
15,000 feet is attained. The sea which separates Australia 
from New Guinea is very shallow, hardly exceeding eight 
or nine fathoms in depth. The Banda, Celebes, and Sulu 
Seas are all deep basins, affording maximum depths of 
16,202, 15,600, and 15,298 feet respectively, and 
another such basin occurs in the China Sea a little west 
of Luzon, where soundings of 14,108 feet have been 
recorded. In the western portion of the region we are 
