160 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



At 1 P.M. on the 26th, after completing the temperature sounding, the course was 

 resumed, and Bermuda was reached without encountering any other considerable changes 

 in the condition of the surface water, the mean temperature of which for the remainder 

 of the passage was 7l°'7, the extremes being 73°"5 and 69°"0. 



In the Halifax-Bermuda section eight soundings, five dredgings and two trawlings 

 in deep water, and eight serial temperature soundings were obtained. 



On the 22nd May, at Station 51, the dredge rope parted as it was being hauled in, 

 apparently without cause, as the dredge was off the bottom, and the accumulators did 

 not indicate any undue strain. The rope had probably got stranded previously by 

 meeting some obstruction on the bottom. 



On the 26th May, at Station 53, the line used in obtaining submarine temperatures 

 became jammed between the rudder and the stern-post, and defeated all attempts to 

 recover it, eventually parting, by which accident seven thermometers were lost. This was 

 the only occasion on which any serious mishap occurred in taking temperature observations 

 throughout the voyage. 



The temperature of the water at the bottom in the Halifax-Bermuda section was, as in 

 the previous sections, remarkably uniform when the depth exceeded 1300 fathoms, the 

 mean being 36°'2 and the extremes 36°"0 and 36°"3. One bottom temperature of 35° was 

 obtained in 85 fathoms on - the 20th May atStation 49, in the centre of the Labrador Current. 



The serial temperature observations indicate in a remarkable manner the influence of 

 the cold water of the Labrador Current on the temperatures below the surface, for it will 

 be seen by referring to the section (Diagram 2) that although that current, judging from 

 the surface temperatures obtained, does not extend more than 100 miles from the land, 

 and is consequently confined in this locality to a depth not exceeding 100 fathoms, yet 

 its lowest stratum apparently flows over the edge of the 100 fathom bank off Nova 

 Scotia, and gradually descends to the bottom of the North Atlantic basin, as evidenced 

 by the parallelism of the isotherms to the contour of the bottom in the immediate vicinity 

 of that bank. The influence of the Labrador Current upon the adjacent water was 

 traced for 150 miles to the southward of its edge, for it will be noticed that the isotherm 

 of 40°, which for 450 miles north of Bermuda occupied the same or nearly the same 

 depth at which it had hitherto been found over nearly the whole of the western part of the 

 North Atlantic, rises almost vertically to the surface 600 miles north of Bermuda. 



On the 27th May, at Station 54, the surface current was found to be N.E. ^ mile per 

 hour. 



On the 28th May, at Station 55a, the surface current was found to be N. 60° E., 

 \ mile per hour, and the current drag at 200 and 500 fathoms indicated no movement at 

 those depths, as the surface water ran past the watch buoy at the same rate and in the 

 same direction as when it was anchored, by the lead line, to the bottom. 



On the 28th May, at 8 p.m., Bermuda was sighted, and the 29th, 30th, and part of 



