UNITED STATES 



DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 



FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 



Honolulu Biological Laboratory 



p. Box 3330, Honolulu, Hawaii 



Recently, it was discovered that the depths of reversal of 

 the Nansen bottles, as calculated at the Honolulu Biological Labora- 

 tory from temperature differences of unprotected and protected 

 reversing thermometers, are in error. These depths, which are in 

 excess of the correct depth, may be reduced to the proper value by 

 the use of a correction factor, as described below 



At the time the data processing system in use at this labo- 

 ratory was being established, a table of the factor l/lQxPm) was 

 prepared for use in computing the depths of reversal from the readings 

 of unprotected thermometers; Q represents the pressure-constant of an 

 unprotected thermometer, and p^^^ represents the mean density of the 

 water column above the depth of thermometer reversal, which was taken 

 to be 1,0303 in all cases „ An error occurred in the calculation such 

 that, instead of l/iQxp^), the table consisted of values of (1/Q)xpj^. 

 This error is present in all of the depth data which have been pub- 

 lished by this laboratory under its previous name. Pacific Oceanic 

 Fishery Investigations, and under its present name, Honolulu Biologi- 

 cal Laboratory, up to and including 1960 Therefore, in making use 

 of the data published by this laboratory before 1961, all depths 

 should be corrected by dividing each by (p ) , which is equal to 

 1.0615. Multiplication of all the published depths by 0.942 will 

 give the proper value for the depth of each observation » 



Thomas S, Austin 



Assistant Laboratory Director 



