48 EXPLORATIONS, WESTERN ATLANTIC, STEAMER BACHE, 1914. 
The temperatures over the inner part of the shelf, both vertical 
and horizontal, were extremely uniform. 
Except for its demonstration that the cold coast and abyss waters 
were discontinuous, the temperature profile does not throw much 
light on the movements of the water in this region; but the salinity 
profile (fig. 49) is unusually instructive in this respect. In general, 
salinity, like temperature, was much lower near the coast than over 
the oceanic basin, with the same sudden transition from one type of 
water to the other. The distinction is even sharper in salinity than 
in temperature, the coast water (33-35°/,.) being separated by a 
Stations 
157 159 160 158 161 
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Fic. 49.—Profile of SR ETRRE Rec ee - Sssteces , and density at the temperature in situ, , from the mouth of 
Chesapeake Bay, across the continental shelf, to a point 90 miles southeast of the 200 meter contour. 
zone of much salter water some 1,000 meters thick from the abyssal 
water (34.9-35°/,.). On the shelf itself there was a steady rise 
of salinity from the land out to about the 100-meter contour, the 
curves for successive salinities showing that the axis of freshest water 
dipped from the surface next the land to about 30 meters at station 
10160, overlying considerably salter bottom water. It is over the 
200-meter contour that the profile is most instructive, for here water 
fresher than 35°/,, suddenly dips downward like a tongue into the 
salter ocean water, and the bottom water of about 35.37°/,,. at station 
10260 seems to have been entirely surrounded by fresher water. 
