MEDITERRANEAN SEA, is the largest inland sea in the world, forming the southern limit of nearly the whole or Europe. It is about 2000 miles long from east to west, and has an average breadth of from 400 to 500 miles. From the Bosphorus a strong current sets into the Mediterranean ; at the Straits of Gibraltar another current flows in from the Atlantic ; two weaker currents flowing outwards along the northern and south ern shores. The tides in the Mediterranean are very small and irregular.
Dr. Marcet has lately shewn, that the water of thc Me diterranean contains rather more salt than the ocean. This fact has been explained, upon the supposition that the Mediterranean is not supplied by the rivers which flow into it with a quantity of fresh water sufficient to replace what it loses by evaporation under a burning sun, aided by a powerful radiation from the African shores, and the parching winds blowing from the ad jacent deserts. Philosophers have, therefore, attempt ed to explain why this sea does not gradually increase in saltness, and indeed be ultimately converted into sa turated brine. This has been ascribed to an tinder cur rent of water, salter than the ocean, which runs out at the Straits of Gibraltar, and unloads its waters of their excess of salt. This idea of a submarine current is
countenanced by the fact communicated to Dr. Marcet by Dr. Carmichael, on the authority of the British con sul at Valentia, that some years ago a vessel was lost at Ceuta, on the African coast, and its wreck afterwards thrown up at Tarifa, on the European shore, fully two miles west of Ceuta.
A similar fact is stated by Dr. Hudson. " In 1712, M. de L'Aigle, of the Phoenix of Marseilles, giving Chace near Ceuta Point to a Dutch ship, came up with her in the middle of the Gut, between Tariffa and Tangier, and then gave her one broadside, which sunk her. A few days after the sunk ship, with her cargo of brandy and oil, came on shore near Tangier, at least four leagues to the west. of the place where she sunk, and directly against the strength of the current ; which has persuaded many men that there is a recurrency in the deep water in the middle of the Gut, that sets out :yard to the grand ocean, which this accident very much demonstrates." Phil. Trans. 1724, vol. xxxiii. p. 192. See also Phil. Trans. 1819, p. 177 ; and Edinburgh Phi losophical Journal, vol. i. p. 236, and vol. ii. p. 358.