America's. Coastlines.

America's coastline is not as indented as either Europe's or Asia's. Especially regular is the coastline of South America, where there is not a single large peninsula or deep bay. In this respect South America is much like Africa. Only at the southernmost point of the continent does there lie the island of Tierra del Fuego, separated from the mainland by the narrow and winding Strait of Magellan.
This strait was named after the European navigator Magellan, who was the first to sail around the world. During his voyage, which took place at the beginning of the 16th century, he passed through it from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On the southern coast he saw the flames of bonfires and named the place: Tierra del Fuego.
On a small island close to Tierra del Fuego is Cape Horn, a dark cliff standing at the very junction of the two oceans. It is often beaten by stormy weather which, together with the dense fogs, make rounding the cape dangerous. In the sailing-ship days many vessels found their graves here.
Between South and North America lie the West Indies. They include the Greater Antilles and a number of smaller islands, and separate the Atlantic from the deep Caribbean Sea.
More indented is the northern coastline of North America. Here lies the Arctic Archipelago, consisting of a great num­ber of large and small islands as well as the greatest island on earth, Greenland. The latter has an area of 2,200,000 square kilo­metres and lies mainly within the Arctic Circle.
The northern coast is deeply indented by the Hudson Bay. This is a large but shallow arm, almost ten times the size of the White Sea in Europe.
Straits connect it with the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Floating ice closes both straits and bay to navigation in winter. Though it extends as far south as parallel 50°, Hudson Bay may be regarded as an Arctic sea, for it is frozen two-thirds of the year and is not free of ice even in summer. Floating ice, frequent storms and dense fogs hinder shipping.
East of Hudson Bay lies the large Labrador Penin­sula and close to it, the island of" Newfoundland in the Atlantic.
In the north-west of North America is the peninsula of Alaska. Together with the Aleutian Islands it separates the Bering Sea from the Pacific Ocean.
Southward there are two peninsulas: long, narrow, mountainous California in the west, separated from the mainland by the Gulf of California, and low-lying Florida in the south-east, separating the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean.

Fig. 151. Cape Horn.

Warm waters from the Equator penetrate through the Carib­bean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico. From here a warm current, called the Gu1f Stream, flows into the Atlantic through the strait lying between Florida and the island of Cuba (one of the Greater Antilles group). It joins another powerful warm current flowing east of the Antilles. Here the Gulf Stream reaches a width of 500 ki­lometres and a depth of several hundred metres. This enormous cur­rent carries more water than all the rivers of the globe combined. It moves northward, but under the influence of the earth's rotation and westerly winds, it is driven north-eastward towards the shores of Europe, where it is called the North Atlantic Drift Current. Off the eastern coast of North America flows the cold Labrador Current from Greenland. It skirts Labrador and moves south­ward in a narrow stream. The icebergs1brought down to the Atlantic by the Labrador Current are a danger to shipping on the trade routes leading from Europe to America.
Questions and Assignments.
1. Trace on the physical map the freezing-lines on the seas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans off the coasts of North America. Account for the fact that the freezing-lines reach different lati­tudes on different seas.
1 iceberg—a mass of ice floating in the sea, usually a Broken mass from a glacier or ice-field.

• Mark and name on the outline map the seas and bays, penin­
  sulas and islands of America.
• In our time what would be the shortest route for a round-the-
  world voyage, if we were to set out from Europe in a western direction?