)94 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



distinct. On the 13th the surface temperature from Eed bay to a station 

 4 miles out, was 44°. 0, and at the station itself the same average was 

 found. After the northerly gale of the 14th and 15th, the average from 

 Eed bay to the middle of the strait was 41°. 6, showing a fall of 21/2°. 

 This must have been largely due to the gale, although the surface tem- 

 perature continued to fall till the 19th and did not recover up to the 

 ;22nd, which must be attributed to the dominant flow westward at the 

 time. 



A remarkable example of fall of temperature due to wind distur- 

 bance, occurred ott' the east coast of Newfoundland between St. Johns 

 and Cape Eace, in 1903. The surface temperature towards the end of 

 August was 50°, when, during three days, there were 1,312 miles of off- 

 shore wind, ranging from N. W. to W. S. W. The surface temperature 

 within three miles of the shore fell to 36° and 34° ; and in a belt ten 

 miles in width along the windward shore, it was below 45°. 



Ice as an indication of current. 



To infer the behaviour of a current from the drift of ice with any 

 certainty, the indications given by flat ice and by icebergs must be care- 

 fully distinguished. The flat or pan ice runs with the surface current, 

 and is much influenced by the wind; whereas the icebergs indicate the 

 average movement of the body of the water as a whole, and the wind has 

 no appreciable effect upon them. This distinction is well known to 

 sealers, and they habitually take advantage of it. When working against 

 a gale of wind, they will moor their vessel to an iceberg, and lie in its 

 lee while the small ice goes past with the drive of the wind; because, 

 as they express it, the wind takes no hold on an iceberg at all. They 

 thus save a long drift to leeward. The iceberg, with so large a proportion 

 of its bulk immersed, may thus take a direction which is little influenced 

 either by the wind or by the surface current when this is of the nature 

 of a wind drift. 



In the Gulf of St. Lawrence the ice met with is of three kinds:! — 

 (1) Berg ice, or the true icebergs which come into the Gulf through 

 Belle Isle strait. They are also found off the south coast of Newfound- 

 land, nearly as far west as Cabot strait. (2) Flat or pan ice, forming 

 fields or in broken pieces, usually not more than 6 feet in thickness, but 

 sometimes as thick as 10 feet. This often jams or shoves along the shore 

 or between islands, and may form masses 20 feet or more in thickness, 

 but it can never be mistaken for berg ice. (3) Eiver ice, from the St. 

 Lawrence Eiver and its estuary. This is also flat ice, and in the Gaspé 

 region it can be readily distinguished by its appearance from the Gulf ice. 



