BIGELOW: EXPLORATIONS OF THE COAST WATERS. 



181 



Surface Salinity. — Surface salinity being unaffected by solar 

 warming, might be expected to reproduce in its main features, the 

 temperatures at some little depth rather than the surface. And such 

 is very clearly the case in the region under discussion, its distribution 



Fig. 15. — Temperature at 40 meters, July-August 1914. 



(Fig. 18), suggesting, though it does not exactly reproduce that of 

 temperature at 40 meters (Fig. 15). Thus there are two distinct areas 

 of low salinity, one in the western side of the Gulf of Maine, the 

 other off southern Nova Scotia, separated by salter water (32.%o+) 

 in the eastern half of the Gulf. And the curve for 32%o recalls that 

 for 8° temperature in the extension of salter water (32.5%o+) from 

 the east westward along the northern shore of the Gulf, as far as 

 Penobscot Bay. But this salt water was not directly continuous 

 with the even higher ocean salinities, being enclosed by slightly fresher 

 water in the southeastern corner of the Gulf. 



