Abstract
AT the outset Mr. Buchanan reminded the audience of the similarities observed in the eastern and western continents, especially in their southern extremities. Such similarities in corresponding localities had been called homologous geographical features, in imitation of the homologies of comparative anatomy, and they had received much attention from students of geography. A remarkable group of similarities of this kind is to be found in the arrangement of inclosed seas lying to the northward of the three southern continents. To the northward of South America there are the Gulf of Mexico and the different basins of the Caribbean Sea; to the northward of Africa there are the Mediterranean with its different basins, and on the north-east the Red Sea; and to the northward of Australia there are the well-known seas of the Eastern Archipelago. These seas are bounded on all sides by islands and insular groups, and they are in continuous connection with two oceans, the Pacific and the Indian. The African seas are bounded entirely by continental land and communicate directly with two oceans; but in the limited sense that, one sea, the Red Sea, communicates with the Indian Ocean by a single channel, and the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic, likewise by a single channel. Finally, the American seas are all in continuous communication with only one ocean, the Atlantic, the continental barrier towards the Pacific being continuous.
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Abstract, by the Author, of a Paper read at the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on Monday, November 8, by Mr. J. Y. Buchanan
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The Similarities in the Physical Geography of the Great Oceans 1 . Nature 35, 33–34 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/035033a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/035033a0