AND NEIGUBOUEING SEAS DDEING 1897. 225 



obtained by the use of the methods here described are sulliciently 

 accurate to encourage the further use of them. This we are doing 

 during the present year on a larger scale, and the results will be set 

 out in next year's report. It is very desirable that experiments 

 should be made to determine the depth of the currents induced by 

 wind-action, and we propose to attempt this work during the present 

 year. A comparison of results obtained by bottles floating at the 

 surface, and by other objects designed to come under the influence of 

 lower strata of water, should yield results of considerable value. Until 

 such experiments are made, however, it does not appear to be desirable 

 to say too much upon the practical aspects of the experiments described 

 in this report. We have obtained a general view of the movements of 

 the uppermost layer of water, and we may be certain that similar, 

 though slower, movements also affect the layers immediately sub- 

 jacent ; but the actual depth to which this movement would be 

 communicated under different conditions of wind and tide is a matter 

 of too much practical importance to be left to mere guesswork. As 

 Molm has well said: "Neither argument nor estimate, but carefully 

 worked-out computations alone, can lead to a lasting result." 



II. St. George's Channel and Irish Sea. 



Owing to the fact that our experiments in this area only cover the 

 summer and autumn months, it does not appear to be advisable to make 

 any attempt to generalise the results obtained, the data given in Table II. 

 being self-explanatory. I may remark, however, that in all the cases 

 which I have specially analysed, the actual drift differs from the 

 estimated drift in taking a more northward direction. This result 

 appears to agree with that obtained by Professor Ilerdman in his 

 experiments in the Irish Sea. {Proc. Liverpool Biol. Soc, vol. x.). 



Note. — lu the tables which follow, as well as in the preceding portion of 

 this report, the positions of places and directions of currents aro invariably 

 indicated by their true geographical bearings, and not by their compass 

 (magnetic) bearings. As the directions of winds are uniformly indicated 

 in true geographical terms, and as compass bearings diller with latitude and 

 longitude, it seemed desirable to use true geographical bearings throughout 

 this report, in order to avoid the possibility of confusion. 



