INDIAN OCEAN, one of the five grand divisions of the universal is bounded on the s. by a line drawn from the cape of Good Hope to the most southerly extremity of Tasmania or Van Diemen's Land. Its other limits, reckoning from the last-men tioned point, are Van Diemen's Land, Australia, the Indian archipelago, Farther India, Hindustan, Persia, Arabia, and Africa. Gradually narrowing from s. to n., the Indian ocean forks at eape,Comorin into the bay of Bengal on the e., and the Arabian sea on the w., the latter again branching off into two arms, the Persian gulf and the Red sea, which reach respectively the mouth of the Euphrates and the neighborhood of the Mediterranean. These details exclude the waters of the Indian archipelago, as belonging rather to the Pacific ocean. As above defined- the Indian ocean stretches in lat. from 43° 35' s. to 30° n., and in e. long. from 18° 29' to 146° 12'. It contains thousands of islands, or rather tens of thousands. Of these Madagascar is the largest, and at about the same distance from it to the e. as the continent of Africa is to the w.,
lie Bourbon or Reunion towards the s., and Mauritius towards the north. Next in size to Madagascar, and, in fact, the only other island of any considerable magnitude, is Ceylon. Asa channel of commerce this ocean would appear to have been the first to find a place in history, inasmuch as the earliest voyage on record beyond the land locked Mediterranean—that of Solomon's navy—did certainly extend further than the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. In this respect it virtually maintained its superiority during fully 2,000 years. being habitually traversed, in the line of the crow's flight, between Arabia and Hindustan, while coasting voyages alone were known in the Atlantic. This comparatively bold navigation was suggested and facilitated by the periodical monsoons of the northern part of the Indian- Ocean, blowing, as they do, alternately from the s.w. and the n.e.