See Circars, Northern.

NORTH SEA, or German Ocean, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, lying between Great Britain on the W. and Denmark and Norway on the E.; extends from N. Lat. 51° to 61°, E. Long. 2° 30' to 7° 30'. Its length is about 700 miles, its breadth about 420 miles, and its area about 270,000 square miles. Near the coasts of Norway, which are steep, and, though indented by deep fiords, send but few streams to the sea, the depth is the greatest, being about 190 fathoms; while the average depth of the whole sea is only 31. On the low southern shores the Elbe, Weser, Rhine, and Scheldt, which here discharge themselves, have carried down immense quantities of sand, which have made the southern portions of the sea comparatively shallow; while on the coast of Great Britain the same effect, though to a less extent, has been produced by the Thames, the Ouse, the Humber, the Tyne, the Forth, and the Tay. The centre of the sea is occupied by several large sand-banks, the principal of which are, one extending from the Firth of Forth 110 miles to the N.E., another stretching nearly as far N.W. from the mouth of the Elbe, and the Dogger Bank, which lies between N. Lat. 54° 10' and 57° 24', E. Long. 1° to 6° 7'. The North Sea has also some remarkable deep holes, such as the Little Silver Pit, off the Yorkshire coast, the Great Silver Pit, and the North North-East Hole. These seabounds in fish, especially cod, hake, ling, turbot, soles, mackerel, herring, &c.; and fishing is extensively carried on, both on the different shores of the sea, and on the Dogger Bank, where cod is obtained. The tides in this sea are formed by the great wave of the Atlantic which passes round the S. and N. of the British Islands. The tide-waves from the N. and S. meet on the coasts of Jutland, where the tides nearly neutralize each other. On entering the North Sea the height of the wave is about 12 feet; but the form of the shore, the nature of the bottom, and the direction in which it meets the land, cause it to vary somewhat in height at different places, and on the Humber it rises to 20 feet. The islands in this sea are of insignificant size, and are three in number—Heligoland, off the Elbe; the Isle of May and the Bell Rock, in the Firth of Forth. On all these, and on many other points, lighthouses have been erected. The North Sea is connected with the English Channel by the Straits of Dover, and with the Baltic by the Skagerrack, the Categat, the Great Belt, the Little Belt, and the Sound.