250 G. F. McEwen. 



4. Ball (7) refuted Bishop's argument and reasoned as follows in 

 favor of the commonly accepted view (8), that the Japan Current is a 

 cold stream bordering the California coast and has a relatively low tem- 

 perature because of its passage thru high latitudes. The northeast 

 trades, blowing hard and steadily for ten months in the year carry the 

 warm water, which the Japan Current delivers in mid-ocean, to the 

 northwest coast of North America which it reaches at latitude 54 near 

 Sitka, Alaska. There, the stream divides into two branches, a northerly 

 and a southerly one. At this point the maximum temperature is 20, but 

 the average is about 15,6. As it moves down the coast, it loses its 

 heat, and produces the fogs and rains of the Oregonian regions cooling 

 off so that when it reaches the latitude of the Golden Gate, it is colder 

 than the sea water under normal conditions in that latitude. That this 

 essentially superficial stream is not due directly to the impinging of 

 cold antarctic water on the northwest coast seems to be certain from 

 the fact that the temperature of the latter is nearly zero, while the 

 current when it reaches the coast is 17 or more warmer than that: 

 and that the water of the current is warmer in latitude 54 than it is 

 in the more southern part of its course, whereas, if it was abyssal, 

 we should expect it to be colder, and to gradually warm up as it 

 moved south-ward exposed to the action of the sun. 



The Pacific is open without stint to the influx of antarctic cold 

 water, and in it probably goes on a great system of true oceanic cir- 

 culation such as might occur were there no continents. The general 

 system of oceanic circulation is influenced by the rotation of the earth, 

 differences of density and temperature in the oceanic mass, tides, the 

 pressure of the atmosphere, and various minor causes, and there are 

 no indications that would lead us to believe that such movement are 

 other than very slow and gradual, or that they have any marked effect 

 in producing the superficial streams of rapidly moving water which we 

 call currents. 



5. Holway (9.) showed that the hypothesis of a surface stream 

 flowing south and being abnormally cold because of its passage thru 

 high latitudes can not be reconciled with observations, and attributed 

 the cold surface water to an upwelling of bottom water as follows. 

 The cold in-shore water cannot be due to a surface current flowing 

 parallel to the coast, as observations of the surface temperatures have 

 indicated narrow belts of alternately warm and cold water directed 

 normal ly to the coast, the temperature differences being 2 or 3. Also 

 the coldest part of the cold-water belt is near Cape Mendocino latitude 



