BIGELOW: COAST WATER EXPLORATION OF 1913. 261 



in the land climate of eastern North America. On this side of the 

 North Atlantic the relation between land climate and ocean tempera- 

 tures is exactly the reverse from what it is off the west coast of 

 Europe, because the winds as a whole, and the great majority of cy- 

 clonic disturbances, drift from the land out over the sea, instead of 

 from sea to land. Hence the coast water must necessarily borrow its 

 temperature, in large degree, from the land climate, instead of temper- 

 ing the extremes of the latter, as is the case in the favored continent 

 of Europe. Granting this, and the principle is so important, and so 

 obvious, that it is remarkable that it has not been emphasized more 

 strongly in the past, the fact that the water is coldest next the coast, 

 and in enclosed troughs, with a steady rise of temperature, depth for 

 depth, passing off shore, is at once explained, for the cold winds of 

 winter would necessarily be most effective as cooling agents near shore. 

 And they would become progressively less so, further and further from 

 land, being warmed by the absorption of heat from the sea water over 

 which they blow. The change from our torrid summer to frigid win- 

 ter, with its prevalent off shore winds, sufficiently explains the rapid 

 cooling of the coast water in autumn and winter. Conversely, solar 

 warming and the warm land winds of spring and summer are the 

 only agencies which could produce the very rapid warming of the 

 surface, which characterizes our coastal zone at that season; for if 

 the change were due to flooding by Gulf Stream water, salinity 

 would rise correspondingly, something which does not happen until 

 the surface water has warmed by some 25°-30° F, if at all (p. 188). 

 The change in land climate, with latitude, is an obvious explanation 

 for the rise in surface and subsurface temperatures over the conti- 

 nental shelf from north to south. Still another continental influence, 

 which must play a part in chilling the coast water is the low tempera- 

 ture of the river water, and the river ice which enters the sea in spring; 

 but this can hardly have as much effect south of Cape Cod as supposed 

 by Tizard (1907).' 



The Gulf of St. LawTence affords an excellent example of the degree 

 to which winter cooling takes place, and of the rapidity with which 

 the temperature falls in autvmm, in an enclosed basin under the in- 

 fluence of the rigorous climate of eastern North America, for its low 

 temperature is certainly due to local causes (Krummel, 1907). Were 

 the Gulf of ISIaine as nearly enclosed as the Gulf of St. LaA^Tence, 

 it would reproduce the temperature of the latter even more closely 

 than is now the case, the northern part of the former being separated 

 from the southern part of the latter by only forty miles of latitude. 



