BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WOODS HOLE AND VICINITY. 35 
also, through its influence upon the atmosphere, the Gulf Stream must have a very 
pronounced effect in tempering the climate of this section of the coast, and this without 
doubt reacts upon the local sea areas. 
As regards the presence of a definite southward-flowing cold current on the New 
England coast, there seem to be decided differences of opinion. According to the 
prevailing view, the Polar or Labrador Current may be detected along practically the 
entire Atlantic coast of the United States. A concise statement of this view has been 
furnished us by the Navy Department: 
A cold current originating in high northern latitudes flows down past Labrador and Newfoundland, 
after which a portion trends away toward the southward over the Grand Banks, past Nova Scotia, and 
on southward in a narrowing belt as far even as the coast of Florida. From Sable Island to Florida 
its course is in general parallel to the Gulf Stream, near which it presents the frequent phenomenon 
of cold water welling up from below. In the shallower waters of the coast this colder current gives 
way to tidal influences which prevail to seaward over a wide area east of Nova Scotia, throughout the 
entire Gulf of Maine, and over Georges Bank and Nantucket Shoals. 
Similar views are embodied in a number of different publications of the Hydro- 
graphic Office and Coast Survey and in certain Government charts. (E. g., Current 
Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean, No. 1308, pub. 1892.) They appear likewise in 
various popular accounts and atlases. (See Boguslawski, 1884, p. 269-272; Bogus- 
lawski and Krummel, 1887, p. 436, 437.) This assumption of a continuation of the 
Labrador Current along the southern shore of New England was made by Libbey, who 
thus interpreted the temperature relations which he observed there. Indeed, Libbey 
believed that the line between the two currents could often be seen from the deck of a 
vessel. (Libbey, 1891a, p. 236.) Various biologists also, including Packard and Verrill, 
have invoked the aid of this northern current in endeavoring to explain certain phe- 
nomena of geographical distribution. Verrill (1871, p. 258), indeed, believed that he 
found evidences of an offshoot of the Labrador Current extending for some distance 
into Long Island Sound. 
According to another view of the case, the Labrador Current can not be traced 
farther south than Newfoundland, along the American coast, and has no connection 
with the ‘‘cold wall’’ or belt of cooler water lying between the Gulf Stream and the 
shores of the United States. It is held by Schott (1897, p. 204-208; see also Supan, 
1903, Pp. 295) that such scuthward-flowing cold water as is found along the New Eng- 
land coast comes mainly from the Gulf of St. Lawrence; that the extent of this flow is 
but slight, and that the presence of the ‘‘cold wall’’ is largely a contrast phenomenon, 
due to the presence of the warmer Gulf Stream beyond. 
Whether or not there occurs along the southern coast of New England a definite 
cold current of any considerable velocity, and, if so, whether this current is a continuation 
of the Labrador Stream, are matters of subordinate importance for our understanding 
of the biology of this region. The undisputed facts in the case seem to be that there 
is a belt of relatively cold water lying between the Gulf Stream and the New England 
shores, and that in summer this belt has a temperature very much lower than that of 
the waters immediately skirting the coast, particularly those of the partially inclosed 
bays and sounds, with whose fauna we have at present to deal. There is evidence, also, 
that north of Cape Cod this cold belt reaches the shores of the mainland itself and 
directly influences the littoral fauna; while south of Cape Cod it lies at some distance 
from the mainland, though its presence is felt upon the outlying shores of Marthas 
Vineyard and Nantucket. Referring to the temperature charts for the northwestern 
