

An announcement v.whlch read as faitlowa) was recently Issued by the 

 Bureau of Commercial Fteherlee Biological Laboratory, Honolulu, concern- 

 ing an error in depths of reversal computed from the readings of unpro- 

 tected and protected reversing thenoometers 



"Receatly,, it was discovered that the depths of reversal of 

 the Hansen bottles as calculated at the Honolulu Biological Laboratory 

 from temperature differerces of unprotected and protected reversing 

 thermometers; are in error, These depths, which are in excess of the 

 cbrrect depth, may be reduced to the proper value by the use of a cor- 

 rection factor, as described below. 



At the time the data processing system in use at this laboratory 

 was being established, a table of the factor l/(Qxp[j,} was prepared for 

 use in computing the depths of reversal from the readings of unprotected 

 thertnometers ; Q represents the pressure- constant of an unprotected ther- 

 mometer, and pm 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/CO'tftn)* the table consisted of values of (l/Q)xPin, This error is 

 present in all of the depth data which have been published by this labo- 

 ratory under its previous name^ Pacific Oceanic Fishery Investigations, 

 and under its pregert name, Honolulu Biological 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 

 ^y C^m) * 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 observa- 

 tion." 



Subsequent analyses have shown thai the error described above is present 

 only in the data from those cruises made by vessels of the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries Biological Laboratory, Honolulu after Hugh M. Smith 

 cruise 20 (February-April 195 J t Cruises for which data containing this 

 error have been published are lifted below with the appropriate publica- 

 tion references 



