BIGELOW: COAST WATER EXPLORATION OF 1913. 



161 



show that depth for depth the temperature was lowest in the north- 

 west corner of the broad bight formed by the coast Une, off New 

 York; warmest, as might be expected, along the edge of the con- 

 tinental slope, next the Gulf Stream. Over Nantucket Shoals as a 

 whole, there was probably very little difference between bottom and 

 surface water, the surface, in July, often being as cold as 55° ; and 

 this rather cold water apparently showed its effect as far westerly as 

 Station 10062 (Fig. 3), which was 1-3° colder at all depths down 

 to 25 fathoms than the next station to the westward (Station 10063). 

 Over the outer part of the continental shelf south of Long Island, 

 the temperature was comparatively uniform, station for station, 

 down to 30 fathoms (Fig. 4) cooling rapidly from the surface 

 downward. But the curves for Stations 10061 and 10065 reveal a 

 warm layer of water on the bottom. The water was very much colder 

 close to the shore near New York than it was further off shore (p. 156), 

 and the same was true along the New Jersey coast, for though by 

 the time we came north, the surface had warmed to about 75°, a rise 

 of about 7°, the bottom water in ten fathoms was still only about 

 52.6°. Off Barnegat the temperatures increase regularly at all depths 

 from the coast eastward (Fig. 5). The ten fathom temperatures for 

 these stations are successively 52°, 58.5°, 70°, 71°; while the fact that 

 at twenty fathoms there was a difference of 17° between Stations 70 

 and 71 (50° and 67°) only fifteen miles apart, and that the latter, lying 



46 47 48 49 50° 51 52 53 54 55 5G 57 



61 62 63 64 65 66 67 



70° 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 



Fig. 7.— Temperature sections close to the land, south of New York (Sta- 

 tions 10068, 10079, 10080) and off Long Island (Stations 10083, 10084). 



over the 500 fathom curve, is much warmer than any of the stations 

 on the continental shelf, shows how sudden the temperature transi- 

 tion between coast and ocean water was. Our only station abreast 

 of the mouth of Delaware Bay (Station 10073, Fig. 5) was consider- 

 ably warmer above twenty fathoms than the station next north of it 

 (10072) ; and several degrees warmer, at all depths, except for the sur- 

 face laver of five fathoms or so, than the water south of it (Station 



