:HAP. in.] THE CRUISES OF THE < PORCUPINE: 131 



fears and work, and this last task, on which he had 

 entered with keen interest, must be finished by other 

 lands. 



It will be seen that the bottom temperature of the 

 ?old area, at 500 fathoms, does not differ by more 

 ;haii two or three degrees from that of the warm 

 irea, at depths beyond 1,500 fathoms. It seems, in 

 act, as Dr. Carpenter has well pointed out, as if all 

 ;he extreme climatal conditions which, in the deep 

 vater of the Atlantic are extended over a vertical 

 listance of two or three miles, are here compressed, 

 without greatly altering their proportions, into the 

 compass of half a mile. We have the same surface 

 super-heating and rapid fall for the first short dis- 

 ance ; the same hump on the curves, indicating the 

 )resence of a layer of water heated by some other 

 ;ause than direct solar radiation ; the same rapid fall 

 hrough a ' stratum of intermixture ; ' and, finally, 

 he same long excessively slow depression through a 

 eep bottom bed of cold water nearly at a uniform 

 ^mperature. 



As might be anticipated, if the view be correct 

 tiat arctic conditions are in a broad sense con- 

 inuous throughout the abyssal regions of the sea, a 

 arge number of the inhabitants of the ' cold area ' are 

 ommoii to the deep water off Eockall and as far south 

 s the coast of Portugal ; but the fauna of the F&roe 

 hannel includes besides these generally distributed 

 arms, an assemblage of species for example the 

 arge crustaceans and araclmida and some of the star- 

 ishes which are not only generally characteristic of 

 rigid conditions, but specially of that part of the 

 rctic province represented by the seas of Spitsbergen, 



K 2 



