BALTIC SEA, is the great 5ulf or shut sea bordered by Denmark, Germany, Russia, and Sweden, and communicating with the Kattegat and North sea. bythe Sound and the Great and Little Belts. Its length is from 850 to 900 m.; breadth, from 100 to 200; and area, including the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, about 160,000 sq. miles. Its depth is on an average 15 to 20 fathoms, in many places not so much, seldom more than 40 to 50, and never exceeding 167. Its ;hallowness and narrowness. the flat coasts of Prussia on the one side and the rocky coasts of Sweden on the other, and above all the numerous and sudden changes of wind accompanied by violent storms, make the navigation of the Baltic very dangerous. The group of the Aland islands divide the s. part of the sea' from the ii. part or gulf of Bothina (q.v.). The gulf of Finland (q.v.), branching off eastwards into Russia, separates Finland from Esthonia. A third gulf is that of Riga or Livonia. The Kurisch and other hafts (q.v.) are not gulfs, but fresh-water lakes at the mouths of rivers.
The water of the Baltic is colder and clearer than that of the ocean. It contains only a fifth of the salt of the Atlantic, and ice hinders its navigation from three to five months yearly. Tides, as in all inland seas, are little perceptible—at Copenhagen, about a foot; yet the water rises and falls at times, though from other causes, chiefly from the varying quantity of water in the rivers at different seasons. Upwards of 250 rivers flow into this sea. The chief from Germany are the Trave, Warnow, Oder, Rega, Persante, Vistula, Pregel, and Niemen; from Russia, the Windau, Mina, Narva, Neva, and Lien; and from Sweden, Tornea, Lulea, Pitea, Umea, Angerman, Dal, the water of lake 3laeler, and that of Wetter and other lakes through the river Motala. The basin of the Baltic occupies at least 880,000 sq. m., or about one fourth of all Europe; and
only about a fourth of the boundary of the basin is mountainous. The principal islands nre Zealand, Fatten, Bornholm, Samsile, 316eu, Lawrelancl, and Laalaud, belonging to Denmark; the Swedish islands Gottland, Oland, and Hveen (in the Sound); the Aland islands, DagO, and Oesel, to Russia; and IlUgen, to Prussia. The number of vessels that pass the Sound to or !coin the Baltic annually is very large. See SOUND DUTIER. Timber, hides, tallow, and grain are the chief exports from the countries bordering on the Baltic. The Eider or Schleswig-Holstein canal, connecting the Baltic near Kiel with the North sea at Touningen, facilitates the grain trade in mild winters. The two seas are also connected by the Gotha canal, which joins the lakes of s. Sweden. The most important harbors in the Baltic are: in Denmark. Copenhagen and Flensburg; in Germany, Schleswig, Kiel, Travemtinde (Lubeck), Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Stettin, Swinemunde, Danzig, Elbing, Konigsberg, Piflan. and Memel; in Russia, Riga, Revel, Narwa, Cronstadt, and Sveaborg; and in Sweden, Stockholm, Carlskrona, and Ystad.—The shores of the Baltic in Prussia and Courland have been long noted for the amber cast ashore by the waves in stormy weather. Another important phcnonemon connected with the Baltic, is an alleged slow vertical movement of its coasts, downwards in the s. of Sweden, but further n. upwards, being there sup posed to be at the rate of 3 ft in a century. See Lye11's Prineeples V The Germanic nations call this sea Ostsee, or Eastern sea; the name Baltic is derived by Dr. Latham from an island Baltia, mentioned by Pliny, and which Dr. Latham considers to be Zealand.