262 The Cruise of the " Princesse Alice" 



towards the Azores. As the waters in the straits have often 

 been explored by the Prince on previous occasions, nothing was 

 done until well outside of the line from Cape Spartel to Cape 

 Trafalgar, which delineates pretty accurately the "lip" of the 

 basin of the Mediterranean. 



On the 24th of July, being in the position where a remarkable 

 haul of large crustaceans was made on the homeward journey 

 last year, the trawl was put over in 800 fathoms. As so often 

 happens in deep-sea work, the successful experience of one 

 year is not repeated in the next. That we are usually unable 

 to give any good reason for this shows how much we have yet 

 to learn. Although the trawl failed to bring up the rich 

 harvest of animals expected, it worked quite well, and brought 

 up what it found, which was mainly mud. In the sounding 

 made previous to putting over the trawl the temperature of 

 the bottom water was found to be remarkably high namely, 

 9-4 C. In the absence of confirmatory evidence, this tem- 

 perature would certainly have been rejected, but the large 

 quantity of mud brought up in the bag of the trawl was found 

 to have a temperature of 8-75 C., so that it was legitimate 

 to take 9 C. as a close approximation to the actual temperature 

 at the bottom. The position of the station, lat. 36 6' N., 

 long. 7 56' W. (Greenwich), is a long way outside of the basin 

 of the Mediterranean, where all the water at a greater depth than 

 250 fathoms has a nearly uniform temperature of about 13 C. 

 On the other hand, in the North Atlantic Ocean the water at a 

 depth of 800 fathoms could not have a higher temperature than 

 4-5 C. It was evident, therefore, that we had here struck one 

 of The main drains of overflow from the abysmal regions of 

 the Mediterranean ; and, taking the above temperatures as 

 bases, we calculate that the water at the bottom in this locality 

 consisted, roughly, of 50 per cent, of Mediterranean and 50 

 per cent, of Atlantic water. From a purely oceanographical 

 point of view this was one of the most interesting occurrences 

 of the cruise. In order that it may be thoroughly appreciated 

 I may remind your readers that the Mediterranean is situated 

 in a region which is relatively dry, and that during the year 

 more water leaves its surface by evaporation than the combined 



