. The earth and its inhabitants ... productive fishing grounds is theDogger Bank, which occupies its centre, and supplies London and other largetowns with immense quantities of cod. The North Sea is indebted for its wealthin fish to its shallowness and freedom from rocks. Oyster beds are the. onlyobstacles which the dredge of the fisherman occasionally encounters. Theseoysters of the high sea, however, are but little esteemed. The best oysters arefound in the shallow, brackish waters along the English coast, and it is these whichare deposited in the oyster parks of Ostend to be fattened. * Das
. The earth and its inhabitants ... productive fishing grounds is theDogger Bank, which occupies its centre, and supplies London and other largetowns with immense quantities of cod. The North Sea is indebted for its wealthin fish to its shallowness and freedom from rocks. Oyster beds are the. onlyobstacles which the dredge of the fisherman occasionally encounters. Theseoysters of the high sea, however, are but little esteemed. The best oysters arefound in the shallow, brackish waters along the English coast, and it is these whichare deposited in the oyster parks of Ostend to be fattened. * Das Thierleben am Boden der Ost- und Nordsee. THE BRITISH ISLES. In its general features the bed of the North Sea resembles the mud-flats, ortrodden, of its eastern shore. Oceanic currents have scooped out channels in themud and sand, but the ori<jinal relief of the sea-bed has been obliterated. Asubmarine plain like this can be the product only of causes acting uniformly Pig. 1.—The North 1 :7,400,000. XrrMUn of Parti. Mrriilinii of GrepiKrich \Dtcth InFàthomf- I iTtoii 64tOllO 100 MUes. over a wide area ; and for such a cause the majority of geologists go back to theglacial epoch, when glaciers, laden with the waste of the land, drifted into thisancient gulf of the Atlantic, and there deposited their loads.* Even at the presentday there are agencies at work which tend to fill up the basin of the North Sea.• Eamsay, Physical Geologj and Geography of Great Britain. THE BEITISH SEAS. Ô Glaciers are no longer stranded on its shores, but rivers deposit in it the sedimentwith which they are charged, whilst the arctic current, which makes itself feeblyfelt in this vast gulf, conveys into it the pumice-stone ejected from the volcanoesof Iceland and Jan Mayen.* Deposition is consequently still going on, though ata much slower rate than formerly. But how are we to explain the gradual fillingup of the North Sea, whilst the abyssal channel which separates it from Norway F
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
