CLARK: ABYSSAL TEMPERATURES 175 



From these results it appears that any star whose parallax 

 is as much as 0".02, i.e., whose distance from the Earth is less 

 than ten million times that from the Earth to the Sun, should 

 give a positive result when subjected to the treatment now 

 employed in parallax investigations, and as eight or ten observa- 

 tories are devoting their energies to stellar parallax work at 

 present, the combined programs containing over 1000 different 

 stars, we ought soon to have lists of at least a few thousand 

 stars whose parallaxes are known where our present lists contain 

 but a few hundred. 



OCEANOGRAPHY. — On the temperature of the water below the 

 1000-fathom line between California and the Hawaiian Is- 

 lands. 1 Austin H. Clark, National Museum. 



From October 11, 1891 until January 15, 1892 the United 

 States Fisheries steamer Albatross was engaged in a cable survey 

 between California and the Hawaiian Islands. On this cruise 

 she occupied 556 stations (Nos. 2655 to 3202 in the records of the 

 Albatross as published by the Bureau of Fisheries, Nos. 1 to 556 

 in the report published by the Navy Department), at nearly half 

 of which the temperature of the bottom water was ascertained. 

 Although these records are individually not so accurate as 

 might be desired, it has seemed possible to make use of them by 

 employing a system of broad averages; that is, by accepting as 

 approximately true the mean of all the readings not obviously 

 erroneous within units of five degrees of longitude. 



Abyssal temperatures in the Pacific vary so slightly that if 

 given in the actual figures it is difficult to appreciate the differ- 

 ences. The most graphic exposition of these differences is by 

 presentation as plus or minus departures from the mean tem- 

 perature for the whole ocean at the depths considered, as as- 

 certained by comparison with the table published by Murray and 

 Hjort. 2 



1 Published with the permission of the Commissioner of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries. 



2 Depths of the Ocean, p. xvi. 1912. 



