364 THE ATLANTIC. [chap. v. 



marked in its phenomena and in its results; but the continuity 

 of the meridional land-belt.is broken nearly opposite the point 

 where the current has its greatest force, and a great part of that 

 force is lost, and a considerable portion of the current itself is 

 dissipated, among the passages of the Malayan Archipelago. 

 Perhaps even a larger projDortion of the Pacific e(piatorial cur- 

 rent than of the Atlantic current is diverted northward, for it is 

 guided by the long crescentic broken barrier consisting of the 

 Fiji Islands, the New Hebrides, and Papua; and the branch 

 which passes down the east coast of Australia is comparatively 

 insignificant; but the northern division passes at once into the 

 region of the monsoons, where it is bafiied for half the year, 

 and one is almost surprised to find the Kuro Siwa a powerful, 

 tolerably permanent warm current, sweeping round the south 

 of Japan, and exercising in the North Pacific a thermic infiu- 

 ence which is certainly comparable with that of the Gulf-stream. 

 The two diagrams. Fig. 100 and Fig. 101 respectively, are curves 

 constructed from serial soundings taken in the Atlantic and in 

 the Pacific, as near as possible to the parallel 35° N., and they 

 show fairly the correspondence in principle and the divergence 

 in detail in the distribution of heat in the two seas. The al)- 

 normal curve No. 44, in Fig. 100, is from the sounding in the 

 Labrador current within the cold-wall of the Gulf-stream ; and 

 the abnormal curve No. 240, Fig. 101, is constructed from a se- 

 rial sounding in a cold current which passes into the North Pa- 

 cific from the Sea of Okotsk, probably through Pico or Boussole 

 Channel. This may be only a summer current, and due in a 

 irreat measure to the meltinc; of the snow over the enormous 

 drainage area of the Amur and the Southern Siberian rivers. 

 Curves No. 80 and A and B in Fig. 100 are introduced to show 

 what we are inclined to regard as the underlap of the water of 

 the equatorial reflux, steadily cooling but still abnormally warm, 

 against the coast of Europe. The tables on page 307 give the 

 positions of the serial soundings : 



