28 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



tion in Mississippi Sound (Moore 1913a, 1913b), 

 and in 1913 was used as the base for a survey of 

 oyster bottoms in Lavaca Bay, Texas (Moore and 

 Danglado 1915). The completion of the latter 

 investigation by Moore marked the ending of the 

 Fish Hawk activities in the Gulf. 



In 1917 the research ship Grampus of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries cruised over the con- 

 tinental shelf from Key West to Aransas Pass in a 

 study of shrimp and fishery grounds (U. S. Bureau 

 of Fisheries, 1919). 



The results of systematic hydrographic work 

 conducted by the United States Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey and the Hydrographic Office of the 

 United States Navy with the additional data 

 accumulated by other explorations served as a 

 source of material for a general discussion of the 

 physiography of the Gulf. Forshey (1878) at- 

 tempted to describe the configuration of the bot- 

 tom of the Gulf, stressing particularly the deposi- 

 tion of sediments brought in by the Mississippi 

 River which he believed eventually will fill up 

 the Gulf. Lindenkohl (1896) summarized tem- 

 perature and salinity data taken primarily from 

 the reports of the United States Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey. 



In order to obtain basic data on physical ocea- 

 nography of the Gulf a plan was adopted in July 

 1905 by the Hydrographic Office of the United 

 States Navy to supply all vessels crossing the 

 Gulf with a form for daily use in giving ship's 

 position, direction and force of the wind, direction 

 and force of the current, and temperature and 

 color of the water. The reports of hundreds of 

 observers extending over a period of years, when 

 plotted on the montlily charts, agreed remarkably. 

 The data were summarized by Soley (1914) on a 

 chart entitled, The Gulf Stream in the Gulf of 

 Mexico (see Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic 

 Ocean for June 1914), reproduced in figure 11. 

 Soley's chart shows the basin of tidal equilibrium 

 (Sigsbee Deep) more than 2,000 fathoms deep in 

 the western part of the Gulf, the direction of the 

 main current, and the Gul Stream which comes 

 from the North and South Equatorial Current in 

 the Yucatdn Channel. The Northwestern Branch 

 of the Current leaves the main stream at the 

 northeastern corner of Campeche Bank, while the 

 Eastern Branch turns eastward from the Yucatdn 

 Channel. The chart shows, also, the two counter- 

 currents, the Cuban and the Western, and the 



position of the Central Sea, a circular body of 

 dead water about 80 miles in diameter. From 

 the time of the first publication of Soley's chart 

 basic information given in it is being incorporated 

 in monthly pilot charts regularly issued by the 

 Hydrographic Office of the United States Navy 

 with the additional data supplied by ships and 

 provided by the United States Weather Bureau 

 of the Department of Commerce (formerly a part 

 of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture). 



In January-March 1914 Bigelow (1915), work- 

 ing on board the United States Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey steamer Bache, made observations 

 in the Straits of Florida studying vertical distri- 

 bution of temperature and salinity from the sur- 

 face to the depth of 1,800 meters along the profiles 

 drawn across the Straits from Key West to Havana, 

 from Cape Florida to Gun Bay, and from Jupiter 

 Inlet to the northern end of Little Bahamas Bank. 

 He noticed the banking up of cold water against 

 Florida as a result of upwelling from deep layers 

 on the left side of the channel and concluded that 

 the cold, comparatively fresh water next to 

 Florida is largely true abyssal water from the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



In 1926 the oyster bottoms in the bays along 

 the coast of Texas were surveyed by Galtsoff 

 (1931) with special emphasis on salinity distribu- 

 tion in these bodies of water. From 1936 to 1939 

 a detailed work on the hydrography of Texas 

 tidal waters was carried out by Collier (Collier 

 and Hedgpeth 1950). 



The natural history of redfish and other sciae- 

 nids on the Texas coast was studied by Pearson 

 (1929) who pointed out the scientific importance 

 in a study of the biological relationship between 

 the Gulf and its inland waters. 



Marked advance in the knowledge of the hydrog- 

 raphy of the Gulf was made in 1932 by the Yale 

 Oceanogi-aphic Expedition of the Mabel Taylor 

 sponsored by the Bingham Oceanographie Founda- 

 tion. One of the chief problems of the investi- 

 gation, formulated by the leader of the expedition. 

 Parr (1935), was to study "the relationship 

 between the waters in the region of the Straits 

 (i. e., the area southward between the Yucatdn 

 Channel and the Straits of Florida) and in the 

 Gulf of Mexico proper." Such a study became 

 highly desirable in view of Nielsen's (1925) 

 objections against the purely two-dimensional 

 picture of surface movements of water in the Gulf 



