716 



BULLETIN OF THE BUKEAU OF FISHERIES 



been necessary to run some distance farther offshore to have reached the inner edge 

 of the so-called "Gulf Stream" on either of these Unes. 



The deeper strata of the western profile (fig. 96) , however, illustrate the prox- 

 imity of oceanic water to this end of the bank; evident, too, on the charts (figs. 94 

 and 95) by a very rapid rise in salinity, with increasing depth at the outer stations 

 (20044 and 20045) to oceanic values of 35 per mille and higher within 60 to 70 

 meters of the surface and down the slope from the 100-meter level. On the eastern 

 profile, however (fig. 97), the vertical change in sahnity was not only less abrupt at 

 the offshore end, but water as saline as 35 per mille lay so far out from this part of 

 the slope that the profile did not reach it at any depth, although readings were taken 

 down to 1,000 meters (station 20069). Nor have we found water as saline as 35 per 



Flo. 97.— Salinity profile running (rom the vicinity of Mount Desert Island, southward across the gulf and across Georges Bank 



to the continental slope, March 3 to 12, 1920 



mille touching the southeastern face of the bank later in the spring (fig. 117) or in the 

 summer. The presence of a wedge of water considerably less saline (and colder) than 

 the so-called "Gulf Stream," sandwiched in between the latter and the slope in this 

 general location, is thus revealed as clearly in cross profile as it is in horizontal 

 projection. 



Apart from these general features, the most instructive aspect of the western 

 member of this pair of profiles is its graphic presentation of a very notable difference 

 in the vertical distribution of salinity between the basin of the gulf to the north- 

 ward of the crest of Georges Bank (where the water was very close to homogeneous 

 from the surface downward to a depth of 100 meters) and the southern half of the 



