4 CLARKE AND STEIGER : COMPOSITION OF SEA WATER 



Tests of the machine made under severest conditions, showed 

 agreement between predicted and computed results within 0.06 

 feet. 



OCEANOGRAPHY. — Note on the 'composition of sea water- 

 F. W. Clarke and George Steiger. Geological Survey. 



Although the water of the ocean varies widely in salinity, from 

 less than one per cent in the Baltic to as much as five per cent in 

 the Red Sea, the composition of its saline matter is curiously 

 constant. Innumerable analyses of it have been made, from the 

 great oceans and the minor seas, so that this conclusion seems to 

 be well established. Data are so far lacking, however, with 

 regard to the waters of our own coasts, except for a single group 

 of analyses, by A. S. Wheeler, of water from near Beaufort, N. C. 

 In order to remedy this deficiency, Dr. A. G. Mayer of the Tor- 

 tugas Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 

 kindly collected a sample of water from near Loggerhead Key in 

 the Gulf of Mexico, which was analyzed in the laboratory of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey. The specific gravity of the water 

 was 1.02434, at 25°, and the total salinity was 3.63516 per 

 cent. This is slightly above the mean salinity of the ocean, 

 3.5 per cent. The percentage composition of the saline matter 

 is given below, in comparison with the average composition of 

 oceanic salts as found by Dittmar for the Challenger Expedition. 



