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



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

 btered with keen interest, must be finished by other 

 |ands. 



' It will he seen that the bottom temperature of the 



bid area, at 500 fathoms, does not differ by more 



lan two or three degrees from that of the warm 



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



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



e extreme climatal conditions which, in the deep 



ater of the Atlantic are extended over a vertical 



[stance of two or three miles, are here compressed, 



ithout greatly altering their proportions, into the 



mpass of half a mile. We have the same surface 



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



ince ; the same hump on the curves, indicating the 



resence of a layer of water heated by some other 



luse than direct solar radiation ; the same rapid fall 



rough a ' stratum of intermixture ; J and, finally, 



le same long excessively slow depression through a 



iep bottom bed of cold water nearly at a uniform 



mperature. 



As might be anticipated, if the view be correct 



at arctic conditions are in a broad sense con- 



nuous throughout the abyssal regions of the sea, a 



rge number of the inhabitants of the c cold area ' are 



mmon to the deep water off Rockall and as far south 



the coast of Portugal ; but the fauna of the Eaeroe 



annel includes besides these generally distributed 



:rms, an assemblage of species for example the 



rge crustaceans and arachnida and some of the star- 



hes which are not only generally characteristic of 



gid conditions, but specially of that part of the 



ctic province represented by the seas of Spitzbergen, 



K2 



