260 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



water is not remarkably salt, the saline matter varying from 39.2 to 

 41 grains in 1000; the water at Havre yielding 36 in 1000, and at 

 Marseilles 38, while at the Canaries it reaches 44. Dr. Buist esti- 

 mates that the evaporation from the Red Sea is equal to eight feet 

 annually, and that not more than one inch of rain, or rain-water, is 

 added in the same time, as, although there are heavy rains on the 

 shores, they are sucked up by the parched sand. He considers that 

 the result of the enormous evaporation is to produce a constant de- 

 scent of heavy salt water to the bottom of the sea ; and when this 

 heavy fluid rises to the level of the Mocha barrier, he thinks it falls 

 over in an outward current, and is replaced by an upper inflowing 

 current. In this manner he thinks the whole of the water is changed 

 once a year. Just within the Straits is a fearfully hot portion of the 

 sea, the highest temperature prevailing between 14 and 21 N., 

 which is the great volcanic region. There the sea rarely falls lower 

 than 80 even in the winter months. In March and April it mounts 

 to 84 ; by May it occasionally reaches 90. The greatest heat is in 

 September, when sea and air get occasionally above blood heat, and 

 looking over the rails of the ship when the sea is in this state, and 

 rain falls and cools the deck, the feeling is that of holding the head 

 over a boiling cauldron. In November, 1856, when the air was 82, 

 the sea rose to 106 between lat. 17 and 23 ; but this was an excep- 

 tional case. 



OBSERVATIONS ON SPITZBERGEN. 



The following are some of the principal results attained to by the 

 recent scientific expedition, dispatched during the past year, by the 

 Swedish government, to the polar islands of Spitzbergen and vicin- 

 ity : 



And, first, it has been ascertained beyond a doubt that the Gulf 

 Stream impinges on the Spitzbergen coast. Not only was the seed 

 of the Mimosa scandens discovered there, but also quantities of glass 

 bottles, which the inhabitants of the Lofoden Islands and of Fimnar- 

 ken use in their cod-fisheries, as floats for their nets. It may, there- 

 fore, be inferred that this branch is a continuation of that which 

 touches the Norwegian coast. The drift timber, however, which is 

 found in large quantities along the coast, is carried thither by a stream 

 from the east, namely, the Siberian, as a quantity of birch-bark, 

 rolled together in a peculiar form, and evidently manufactured by 

 man, was found amongst it, and it is known that the tribes along the 

 Siberian coast use this birch-bark for net-floats. The pumice-stone 

 which was found in large quantities on the coast in all probability 

 comes from Iceland, the southern coast of which is washed by a 

 branch of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream, however, was found 

 to exert no influence on the marine animal life, which is entirely of 

 a glacial nature ; but that it does have great influence on the tem- 

 perature and climate, there can be no question. 



Formerly it was supposed that the limit of eternal snow reached 

 down nearly to the surface of the sea in the northern part of Spitz- 

 bergen ; but from observations made on a range of rounded and uni- 

 form mountains, devoid of projecting points, etc., it was ascertained 

 that this limit is at least one thousand Swedish feet above the level 



