824 EIGHTH PACIFIC SCIENCE CONGRESS 



curve to the north near the coast of Taiwan, which shows the warm 

 water entering into the Channel. At the north entrance of the Chan- 

 nel, the isotherms curve to the west. It also shows the influence of warm 

 current but there are still outflows from the Channel close along the 

 north coast of the island. 



The water temperature of the China Coastal Current in May is 

 warmed up and we can find the lowest temperature of 20 °C. along the 

 north part of the coast (Fig. 3). It increases gradually southeastward 

 and reaches its maximum of 28 °C. In the Taiwan Channel the iso- 

 therms are parallel to the China Coast, but they turn gradually to pa- 

 rallel with the latitudes off the south and east coast of the island. From 

 this distribution of water temperature we can find out that there are 

 still inflows of warm current at the south entrance of the Taiwan Chan- 

 nel along the west coast of the island. But at the north entrance of 

 the Channel the China Coastal Current seems more intense and the 

 warm current leaves farther to the east. 



The distribution of surface water temperature in August, which 

 is shown in Figure 4, looks very simple. There are only two lines of 

 isotherm in the figure. The isotherm of 27 °C. is along the north part 

 of the China Coast, while that of 28 °C. separates the coast of the is- 

 land of Taiwan. They all run from southwest to northeast. In this 

 month, the water temperatures of both the China Coastal Current and 

 the Kuroshio reach their maximum, but the former, coming from the 

 higher latitudes, is comparatively cooler than the latter, which comes 

 from the lower latitudes. 



In the month of November, the surface water temperature along 

 the north part of the China Coast drops down to 20 "C. It increases 

 gradually to the southeast, as shown in Figure 5, in which we can 

 find that the isotherm of 26°C. is very close to the south and east coast 

 of the island. But the isotherm of 27 °C. is far to the southeast, leaving 

 a great space to the isotherm of 26 °C. From this manner of distribu- 

 tion it may be considered that the temperature of the main flow of the 

 Kuroshio is around 27 °C. and is mixed with the cooler water in the 

 Taiwan Channel and the East China Sea. 



The seasonal variation of salinity of surface water in surrounding 

 waters of Taiwan is not so great as that of temperature. The writer 

 gives two sketches here to show the distributions of salinity in Febru- 

 ary and August. In Figure 6, showing the distribution of salinity in 

 February, we can find that in the east and south of Taiwan the salinity 

 is more than 34.5 ^/qq, which coincides with the salinity of the Kuro- 

 shio. In the Taiwan Channel, the salinity decreases gradually toward 



