188 



THE SMALL GAME OF THE SEA 



Bank the temperature at the bottom rises to at least 12° 

 (55-6° F.) in the summer season. The sole may thus find here 

 temperatures similar to those off the Atlantic coast of Europe, 

 though in somewhat shallower water.' 



Fig. 21. — Currents of the North Atlantic. After Schmidt's ' Valdivia 

 Report and Helland-Hansen and Nansen's memoir on The, Norwegian Sect' 

 ( From The DejUhs of Ocean. By permission of Messrs. Macmillan.) » 



Below 40 metres (22 fathoms) the summer temperature is not 

 much higher than the temperature during winter, viz. between 



^ The course of the currents here shown is, of couise, only the average direc- 

 tion. The G'ulf (Stream, for instance, is not a body of warm water moving 

 steadily across the North Atlantic. Its tlow resembles ' bands of current ' 

 forming huge swirls ' whose strength and direction vary almost daily '. The 

 Michael Bars in June 1910 found a strong set to the south-west about 280 

 miles to the southward of Newfoundland. The cable ship Podbielshi found 

 a similar flow in the same direction in May 1902. And on our own side of the 

 Atlantic the research trawler Nicholas Dean experienced a strong south-westerly 

 set over the Lousy Bank (60° 19' N. and 12° 30' W.) in August 1920. These 

 instances in which the Gulf Stream was found to be flowing south-west instead 

 of north-east illustrate Helland-Hansen's warning that we know very little 

 indeed about the variations of the ocean currents. {Depths of Ocean, pp. 299 

 and :J00.) 



