JOURNAL 



OF THE 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. IY JANUARY 4, 1914 No. 1 



OCEANOGRAPHY".— 7^/ie circulation of the abyssal water of the 

 oceans. Austin H. Clark, National Museum. 



The geographical and bathymetrical distribution of the recent 

 crinoids, animals which, occurring at all depths, are thruout 

 life, with veiy few exceptions, strictly sessile, and of which the 

 j^oung are developed entirely in the water immediately surround- 

 ing the adults, furnishes data of the greatest importance for the 

 solution of the problems connected with the abyssal circulation 

 of the oceanic waters. This circulation, as would be expected, 

 differs radically from the circulation of the surface waters, and is 

 altogether of a much simpler type. As indicated by the distri- 

 bution of the recent crinoids, the general scheme of the abyssal 

 circulation of the oceanic water is as follows: 



The surface water of the antarctic regions, bathing the shores 

 of the antarctic continent and forming the circumpolar antarctic 

 stream, is in reality abyssal water, derived entirely from the 

 abysses of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. It has nothing 

 whatever to do with the surface water of the rest of the globe, 

 from which it is separated by a broad neutral zone, the so-called 

 west wind drift. Antarctic water enters the basins of the Pacific, 

 Atlantic and Indian oceans in the form of great peripheral cur- 

 rents (the Humboldt, Benguela and Australian currents) flowing 

 along their southern, southeastern and eastern borders, which, 

 in the Pacific and Atlantic, plunge beneath the surface at about 

 the latitude of the equator, but are continued as deep currents 

 northward, westward, and finally for a greater or lesser distance 



