BLACK SEA (Lat. Pontus Euxinus), a sea situated between Europe and Asia, and bounded on the west by Turkey, Bulgaria and Rumania, northwest, north and east by the Rus sian dominions, and on the south by Anatolia (Asia Minor), being connected with the Medi terranean by the Bosporus, and with the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Yenilcale. The area of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov amounts to 168,500 square miles; its length is 750 miles and breadth 385 miles. The water is not so clear as that of the Mediterranean, and, on account of the many large rivers which fall into it,— the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Don, Kuban, etc.,— being less salt, freezes more readily. The tempests on this sea are sometimes tremendous in winter, as the land which con fines its agitated waters gives to them a kind of whirling motion ; but being practically clear of islands and rocks, its navigation is not diffi cult on the whole. Tidal action is scarcely perceptible. A strong current, however, sets toward the Bosporus, and an undercurrent in the opposite direction from the iEgean Sea. In 1854 one of its tremendous storms occasioned a very serious loss to the shipping of the allied British and French. The fisheries in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea are not unimportant, various kinds of valuable fish both large and small being taken; among others, several species of sturgeon. Caviare is made on the coast, as
well as fish-glue, fish-oil, and, from the spawn of the sea mullet, botargo. The chief ports are Odessa, Kherson, Nicolaiev, Sebastopol, Novo rossisk, Batoum, Trebizond, Samsun, Sinope and Varna. It contains no islands of any note. After the capture of Constantinople (1453) the Turks excluded all but their own ships from the Black Sea till 1774, when the Russians obtained the right to trade in it, the same right being accorded to Austria in 1784, and to Britain and France in 1802. The preponderance thereafter gained by Russia was one of the causes of the Crimean War. The sea was declared neutral by the Treaty of Paris in 1856. In 1871, how ever, the sea was deneutralized by a conference of the European powers (France being un represented) at London in response to a pro test from Russia. Certain modifications were made at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and continued down to the outbreak of the War of 1914. For the military and naval operations in this theatre see WAR, EUROPEAN - CAMPAIGNS ON EASTERN FRONT AND NAVAL OPERATIONS.