BLACK, or EUXINE SEA (the Pontus Euxinus), or " hospitable sea" of the ancients, the Kara Deniz of the Turks, the Manri Thalassa of the modern Greeks, and the Tscher noje More of the Russians) is an inland sea lying between Europe and Asia, extending from lat. 40° 45' to 46' 45' rt., and from long. 27° 30' to 50' east. In shape it bears a certain resemblance to the human foot. Its greatest length from e. to w., on the 42d par allel, is about 700 in., and its greatest breadth, near the w. end, about 380 miles. Area, 172,000 sq. miles. On the south-western extremity it communicates by the Bosporus, the sea of .Marmora, and the Dardanelles, with the Mediterranean, and on the n.e. by the straits of Yenikale with the sea of Azof. The B. S. drains nearly one fourth of the surface of Europe, and also about 100,000 sq.m. of Asia. Throughout its whole extent it has•but one island, and that a small one, lying opposite the mouths of the Dan ube, called Adassi, or isle of serpents, on which is The continued occu pation of this island the Russians, in defiance of the stipulations of the treaty signed at Paris after the termination of the Crimean war, occasioned considerable uneasiness in Turkey, and detained a British fleet in the B. S. for several months. In the center of the B. S. there arc no soundings at 150 fathoms, nor are there shoals along the shores, except at the entrance of the Bosporus; the navigation of the B. S. ought, therefore, to be particularly easy and safe. It is so in summer; but iu 'winter, being inclosed on every side, it becomes the scene of conflicting winds, and of storms which, though of short duration, are terrible while they last. Such a storm it was on the 14th of Nov„ 1854, in which about forty vessels of the allies were either totally wrecked or very seri• ously injured; nearly 1000 lives were lost, and property worth some millions destroyed.
All the coasts are high, with good harbors, except between the mouths of the Danube and the Criinea; there the land is low, and the danger of navigation greatly increased in winter by the presence of floating ice; for, from the many large rivers which flow into the 13. S. and sea of Azof (Danube, Dniester, Bug, Dnieper, Don, and Kuban, in Europe; and the Kizil-Irmak and Sakara is Asia), the waters are fresher, and consequently more easily frozen than those of the Mediterranean. The specific gravity of the water of the 13. S. is 1014 (water being = 1000), while that of the Mediterranean is 1028. The shores from Odessa to the Crimea are ice-bound during Jim. and Feb.; and although the har bor of Odessa is never frozen up, yet the drift ice frequently renders the entrance to it dangerous.
There is no tide in the B. S., but the large rivers flowing into it give rise to currents, which are particularly strong in spring when the snows melt, and the acommlated moisture of the whole winter is drained off the land. The ;neat current which, passing
out of the sea of Awl round the Crimea, flows first in a south-westerly, then in a north westerly direction, and again due West, is turned southwards by a current frotn the Dnieper and Dniester; the two currents are afterwards met by another from the Danube, and then, all united, rush towards the Bosporus. The Bosporus, however, is not wide enough to admit the entire volmne of water pressing into it; and a portion of the main current is consequently diverted to the coast of Asia, where it is strengthened by new secessions. This, which is the florinsl course of the currents in the B. S , is modified by the winds, and by local circumstances, In some bays of Roumelia and Bulgaria counter currents have been observed. The most important ports on the 13. S. are those of Odessa, Kherson, Eupatoria, Sebastopol, Battn, Trebizond, Semsun, Sinope, Varna, etc.
The depth of the water is unfavorable to the extensive establishment of fisheries, but several kinds of sturgeon are might in considerable quantities in thestreits of Yenikale. Other fish of various kinds are said to be abundant, The ancients believed that the B. S. was et one time much more extensive, and that it had no connection with the Mediterranean. They accounted for its decrease and com munication with the larger sea by the supposition that the Thracian Bosporus had been burst through by an enriliquake, or by the mat (kluge known its the Deucalion delnge, which inundated Greece. The 13. S. being than the Mediterranean, the latter, of course through the newly created channel, becume the basin for much of its waters. Certain geological and other appearances have led some modern geographers to entertain an opinion similar to that of the old Greeks, which, however, is not shared in by others.
The 13. S. has been navigated from a very early period. Its esiginsl carne (supposed to have arisen from the dangers such an expanse of sea ofresed to early navigation, es well as from the fact that savage tribes dwelt upon its coasts) was Anne, or "inhospit able" sea, afterwards changed by the Greeks to Et/sinus. In the tine of Xerxes, large quantities of corn were exported from its ports to Athens and the Peloponnesus. The Romans and Byzantine emperors, and also the Genoese, had large traffic on the Black sea. When the Turks captured Constantinople, all but their own ships were excluded from Its waters until the treaty of Kitiarji, 1774, when the Russians obtained the right to trade in it. Ten years after, Austrian ships were privileged to trade here; and by the peace of Amiens, in 1802, British and French ships were admitted. The undue prepon derance of Russia in the B. S. was the main cause of the Crimean war.