There is a strong analogy between South America and Africa in form and the unbroken mass which their surface presents, while North America resembles Europe, in being much indented by inland seas, gulfs, and bays. Eastern Asia is evidently continued in a subaqueous continent from the Indian Ocean across the Pacific nearly to the west coast of America, of which New Holland, the Indian Archipelago, the islands of the Asiatic coast and of Oceania, are the great table-lands and summits of its mountain-chains. With the exception of a vast peninsula in Siberia, between the mouths of the rivers Yenesei and Khatanga and the unknown regions of Greenland, the two great continents terminate in a very broken line to the north; and as they sink beneath the Icy Ocean, the tops of their high lands and mountains rise above the waves and stud the coast with innumerable snow-clad rocks and islands. The 70th parallel is the average latitude of these northern shores, which have a great similarity on each side of Behring’s Straits in form, direction, and in the adjacent islands. The peninsular form of the continents adds greatly to the extent of their coasts, of such importance to civilization and commerce. All the shores of Europe are deeply indented and penetrated by the Atlantic Ocean, which has formed a number of inland seas of great magnitude, so that it has a greater line of maritime coast, compared with its size, than any other quarter of the world. The extent of coast from the Straits of Waigatz, in the Polar Ocean, to the Strait of Caffa, at the entrance of the Sea of Azoff, is about 17,000 miles. The coast of Asia has been much worn by currents, and possibly also by the action of the ocean occasioned by the rotation of the earth from west to east. On the south and east especially it is indented by large seas, bays, and gulfs; and the eastern shores are rugged and encompassed by chains of islands which render navigation dangerous. Its maritime coast is about 33,000 miles in length.