The harbors of North and South Carolina are generally bad. That of Charleston is obstructed at its entrance by a dangerous sand-bar; that of Georgetown will admit only small craft. The harbor of Beaufort or Port Royal is the best in the state, but is little frequented. The largest bays of Florida are those of Apalachicola, St. Andrew’s, Ochlockney, and Pensacola. Alabama has but about sixty miles of seacoast, containing the spacious Bay of Mobile, which extends thirty miles inland. It has two principal entrances, one of which has eighteen feet depth of water. To the west it communicates by a shallow passage with the Bay of Pascagoula, which lies within a number of islands, on the coast of this state and Mississippi. II. SOUNDS. _Long Island Sound_ is an extensive gulf or channel, from three to twenty-five miles broad, and about one hundred and forty in length, extending the whole length of Long Island, and dividing it from Connecticut. It is narrow at the eastern entrance, and expands in the middle; it communicates with the ocean at both ends. Towards the west it contracts gradually, till it joins the harbor of New York by a narrow and crooked strait. It admits of a free navigation throughout its whole extent for the largest ships, except at the celebrated passage called _Hell Gate_,[30] situated near the west end of this sound, about eight miles from the city of New York. It is a very singular strait, about three or four hundred yards in breadth, having a ledge of sunken rocks across it in an angular direction, which occasions many whirlpools and cross currents in the water. These, at certain periods of the tide, make a tremendous noise, and render a passage impracticable; but at other times the water is smooth, and the navigation easy. _Pamlico Sound_ is a kind of a lake or inland sea, from ten to thirty miles broad, and seventy miles in length. It is separated from the Atlantic ocean, in its whole length, by a beach of sand hardly a mile wide, generally covered with trees or bushes. Through this bank are several small inlets, by which boats may pass; but Ocrecock Inlet is the only one that will admit vessels of burden. This inlet communicates with _Albemarle Sound_, which is also a kind of inland sea, sixty miles in length, and from four to fifteen in breadth, lying north of Pamlico Sound. _Core Sound_ lies south of Pamlico, and has a communication with it. These sounds are so large, when compared with their inlets from the sea, that no tide can be perceived in any of the rivers which empty into them, nor is the water salt, even in the mouths of these rivers. III. GULFS.