channels, mixed water flowing seaward superficially on the ebb and 

 landward at depth on the flood. The irregular nature of the submarine 

 topography, and effect of earth's rotation, act on the moving water 

 rnasses to give apparently anomalous density distribution and com- 

 plicated flow patterns in which currents of different strata vary in both 

 magnitude and direction. 



Model studies of critical areas are being initiated to supplement 

 field observations. Although prototype conditions cannot be exactly 

 scaled in any practical model it is expected that these studies will give 

 a continuity and a flexibility not readily obtained in the field. 



Dr. C. L. Utterback, Professor of Physics, has been concerned with 

 the radium analysis of sea-water, bottom samples, and organic material. 

 He is extending his studies to include uranium and possibly thorium. 

 The extensive radium analyses which have been made by him and other 

 in\'estigators and some very meagre data from questionable uranium 

 analyses indicate a considerable departure from radioactive equilibria. 

 Thus the amount of radium in sea-water, 0-8 x 10~^ ^ grams per gram of 

 sample would be supported by 0-24~^ grams of uranium per gram of 

 sample. The indications are that sea- water contains four to five times 

 as much uranium as is necessary to maintain the radium balance. It is 

 improbable, in the case of sediment washed by water, that radioactive 

 equilibrium exists, but the unbalanced can be determined. The dis- 

 tribution of radioactive material in marine plant and animal matter 

 will probably give information as to the reason for the unexplained ratio 

 of the radioactive products of disintegration. While the concentration 

 of radium is such that rather accurate analyses have been made by the 

 ionization method, the quantities of uranium present are extremely 

 minute and new techniques are being developed for its determination. 

 Considerable attention is being given to the nature of fogs, parti- 

 -cularly in the Seattle area, by Dr. Phil E. Church, Professor of 

 Meteorology. Serial ascents of a delicate low altitude meteorograph 

 below a tethered balloon are made hourly during foggy conditions. 

 The results show that in radiation fog the lapse rate changes from inver- 

 .sion to wet adiabatic as the fog thickness increases vertically. Plans 

 are being initiated for the investigation of a number of characteristics 

 of the summer fogs which occur off the Washington coast. He is also 

 planning to make extensive observations with the bathythermographs 

 during the course of a year in the north-east Pacific to determine detailed 

 thermal structure in the upper layers of ocean water and compute the 

 heat loss and gain in opposite seasons. 



Dr. Rex J. Robinson, Professor of Chemistry, and the writer are 

 engaged in studies on the distribution and methods of analysis for a 

 number of the elements occurring in sea-water. At the present time 

 refinements in the methods for the determination of potassium, 

 strontium, and fluorides are receiving attention. A paper on the 

 distribution of various nutrient salts, dissolved oxygen as well as the 

 temperatures and sahnities of the waters of Puget Sound, W^ashington 

 Sound, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca over a ten-year period is in 

 preparation. A study is also in progress on the preferential adsorption 

 of certain ions in sea-water in freshly forming ice crystals. Paired with 

 this investigation is another dealing with a phase rule study on the 

 deposition of the salts in sea-water by frigid concentration. Dr. Robinson 

 is also occupied with a study of the determination and distribution of 

 phosphorous in organic compounds dissolved in sea-water. 



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