The ocean surrounds the earth on all sides, and penetrates into the interior parts of different countries, often by large openings, and frequently by small straits; it forms mediterranean seas, some of which participate of its motions of flux and reflux, and others seem to have nothing in common with it except the continuity of water. We shall follow the ocean through all its extent and windings, enumerating at the same time all the mediterranean seas, and endeavour to distinguish them from those which should be only called bays, or gulphs, and lakes. The sea which washes the western coasts of France forms a gulph between Spain and Britain; this gulph, which mariners call the Bay of Biscay, is very open, and the point which projects farthest inland is between Bayonne and St. Sebastian; another great projection is between Rochelle and Rochefort: this gulph begins at Cape Ortegal, and ends at Brest, where a strait commences between the south point of Britain and Cape Lizard. This strait, which at first is very large, forms a small gulph in Normandy, the most projecting point of which is at Auranche; it continues pretty broad until it comes to the channel at the foot of Calais, where it is very narrow; afterwards it grows broader on a sudden, and ends between the Texel and the coast of England at Norwich; at the Texel it forms a small mediterranean sea, called _Zuyder-zee_, and many other great canals, which are not very deep. After that the ocean forms a great gulph called the German Ocean; it begins at the northern point of Scotland, runs along the eastern coast of Scotland and England as far as Norwich, from thence to the Texel, along the coasts of Holland and Germany, Jutland, Norway, and above Bergen. This gulph might be taken for a mediterranean sea, because the Orkney islands partly shut up its opening, and seem to be directed as if they were a continuation of the mountains of Norway. It forms a large strait, which begins at the southern point of Norway, and continues very broad to the Island of Zetland, where it narrows all at once, and forms between the coasts of Sweden, the islands of Denmark and Jutland, four small straits; after which it widens to a small gulph, the most projecting point of which is at Lubec: from thence it continues pretty broad to the southern extremity of Sweden, when it grows broader and broader, and forms the Baltic Sea, which is a mediterranean, extending from south to north near 300 leagues, comprehending the gulph of Bothnia, which is in fact only a continuation of it. This sea has two more gulphs, that of Livonia, whose most projecting point is near Mittau and Riga, and that of Finland, which is an arm of the Baltic, extending between Livonia and Finland to Petersburgh, and communicating with the lake Ladoga, and even with the lake Onega, which communicates by the river Onega to the White Sea. All this extent of water, which forms the Baltic Sea, the