TEMPERATURE AND SALINITY — WATERS OF TAIWAN 825 



the coast of the mainland ot China, reaching a lowest salinity of 

 30.0 °/oo, which is influenced by coastal waters. 



The salinity off the east and south coast of the island in August 

 is a little lower than in February. The iso aline of 34.5 °/oo leaves farth- 

 er to the east, as shown in Figure 7. The lowering of salinity at that 

 region is contributed to the plentifulness of rainfall during that season. 

 Very close to the coast of the island of Taiwan we find still lower sa- 

 linity below 32.0 °/oo and 33.0 °/oo- It may be contributed to the effect 

 of outflows from the island. In the Taiwan Channel, the salinity de- 

 creases toward the coast of the Chinese mainland, where we find the 

 lowest salinity of 31.5 °/oo. This value is a little higher than in Feb- 

 ruary. It is, perhaps, the result of intense evaporation effected by the 

 high water temperature. 



IV. Conclusion 

 From the above discussion, we can see the general feature of the 

 seasonal distribution of surface water temperature and salinity in sur- 

 rounding waters of Taiwan. It is clear that these variations are greatly 

 influenced by the properties of different systems of currents. Unfor- 

 tunately, we can not get enough data to find out the vertical distribu- 

 tion of these two elements and, therefore, it is impossible to form a 

 whole idea about the nature of the currents. It needs more data of 

 observation and further investigations to solve the problem. 



