1869.] Meteorology. 301 



conclusion that the distribution of animal life is more closely related 

 to the temperature than to the depth of the sea. However, the 

 results of the sixteen soundings made by this expedition must be 

 considered as merely tentative; and we can only hope that the 

 present Board of Admiralty will give as cordial countenance to 

 the inquiry as their predecessors did, now that it has been shown, 

 as Dr. Carpenter observes, " that within a short distance of the 

 northern coast of Scotland an opportunity is presented for deter- 

 mining with great precision the physical conditions of two opposing 

 currents with a difference of temperature of at least 15°." This 

 determination is not, by any means, as simple a matter as it may 

 seem. Deep-sea sounding is no child's play, and when we have 

 to ascertain thereby not only the depth of the sea, but the ex- 

 istence, the course, the limits, and the physical conditions of 

 submarine currents, the problem becomes one of extreme difficulty ; 

 and we shall look with great interest to the attempts made to effect 

 its solution. 



While we are on the subject of ocean currents, a book recently 

 pubhshed by I\Ir. Jordan,* calls for special notice. In this work 

 the author proceeds, as he says himself : — " Firstly, by theo- 

 retical deduction, to demonstrate hypo the tically the action of vis 

 inertia. 



" Secondly, by practical investigation, to ascertain whether or 

 not there exist in the ocean such movements as may, in the first 

 part, be demonstrated to be the natural result of the action of 

 vis inert iiB." 



In the first book the theoretical effect of the principle, as 

 brought into action by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and 

 by its annual orbital motion, is examined. In this portion, though 

 we may allow the truth of a good deal that Mr. Jordan says, we 

 must say that more actual proofs are required before we can admit 

 the existence of perpendicular and inclined circulations in the ocean, 

 such as he supposes to exist. We are hardly prepared to attribute 

 the circumstance that the tendency of an equatorial current of air 

 is to lower, while that of a polar is to raise, barometrical readings, 

 to the fact that while the former is, in virtue of its nature, an 

 ascending current, the latter is a descending one. 



The question of ascending and descending currents requires 

 investigation, but we are decidedly disposed to beheve that not 

 unfrequently the south-west wind descends to the earth, e. g. at 

 the edge of the trade wmds, while the north-east wind at times 

 rises from it. 



Some of the diagrams of ocean circulation given by the author 



* ' A Treatise on the Action of Vis Inertise in the Ocean, with Eemarks on the 

 Abstract Nature of the Forces of Vis Inertise and Gravitation, and a new Theory of 

 the Tides.' By W. Leightou Jordan, F.R.G.S. London : Longmans. 



