490 
NATURE 
[March 10, 1870 
ranges from the freezing point of fresh water to 2}° below it. 
Between the two is astratum of intermixture of about 100 fathoms 
thickness, which marks the transition between the warm super- 
ficial layer and the body of frigid water which occupies the deeper 
part of the channel. 
The shortest distance within which these two contrasted sub- 
marine climates were observed at corresponding depths, was 
about 20 miles; but a much smaller distance was sufficient to 
produce it when the depth rapidly changed. Thus near the 
southern border of the deep channel, at a depth of 190 fathoms, 
the bottom-temperature was 48°7°; while only six miles off, 
where the depth had increased to 445 fathoms, the bottom-tem- 
perature was 30°1°. In the first case, the bottom evidently lay 
in the warm superficial stratum ; whilst in the second it was over- 
flowed by the deeper frigid stream. 
It seems impossible to account for these phenomena on any 
other hypothesis than that of the direct derivation of this 
frigid water from the Arctic basin. And this agrees very well 
with other facts observed in the course of the exploration. 
Thus:—(1) The rapid descent of temperature marking the 
“stratum of intermixture” began about 50 fathoms nearer the 
surface in the most northerly portion of the cold area 
examined, than it did in the most southerly, as might be expected 
from the nearer proximity of the cold stream to its source. (2) 
The sand covering the bottom contains particles of volcanic 
minerals, probably brought down from Jan Mayen or Spitz- 
bergen. (3) The Fauna of the cold area has a decidedly Boreal 
type; many of the animals which abound in it haying been 
hitherto found only on the shores of Greenland, Iceland, or 
Spitzbergen. 
Although the temperatures obtained in the warm areas do not 
afford the same striking evidence of the derivation of its whole 
body of water from a southern source, yet a careful examination 
of its condition seems fully to justify such an inference. For the 
water at 400 fathoms in lat. 59}° was only 2°4° colder than 
water at the same depth at the northern border of the Bay of 
Biscay, in a latitude more than ro” degrees to the south, where 
the surface-temperature was 62°7°; and the approximation of 
the two temperatures is yet nearer at still greater depths, the 
bottom-temperature at 767 fathoms at the former stations being 
41'4°, whilst the temperature at 750 fathoms at the latter point 
was 42°5°. Now, as it may be certainly affirmed that the 
lowest temperature observed in the warm area is considerably 
above the isotherm of its latitude, and that this elevation could 
not be maintained against the cooling influence of the Arctic 
stream but for a continual supply of heat from a warmer region, 
the inference seems inevitable that the bulk of the waterin the warm 
area must have come thither from theS.W. The influence of the 
Gulf Stream proper (meaning by this the body of superheated water 
which issues through the “ Narrows” from the Gulf of Mexico), ifit 
reaches this locality at all—which is very doubtful—could only 
affect the most superficial stratum ; and the same may be said of 
the surface-drift caused by the prevalence of south-westerly 
winds, to which some have attributed the phenomena usually 
accounted for by the extension of the Gulf Stream to these re- 
gions. And the presence of the body of water which lies be- 
tween 100 and 600 fathoms’ depth, and the range of whose tem- 
perature is from 48° to 42°, can scarcely be accounted for on any 
other hypothesis than that of a great general movement of Equa- 
torial water towards the Polar area; of which movement the 
Gulf Stream constitutes a peculiar case modified by local condi- 
tions. In like manner, the Arctic Stream which underlies the 
warm superficial stratum in our cold area, constitutes a peculiar 
case, modified by the local conditions to be presently explained, 
of a great general movement of Polar water towards the Equa- 
torial area, which depresses the temperature of the deepest parts 
of the great Oceanic basins nearly to the freezing-point. 
W. Bb. CARPENTER 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LonboNn 
Royal Society, March 3.—The following papers were 
read :—‘‘ Results of the Monthly Observations of Dip and 
Horizontal Force, made at the Kew Observatory, from April 
1863 to March 1869 inclusive.” By Dr. Balfour Stewart. 
‘Spectroscopic observations on stars and nebulae made with 
the Great Melbourne Telescope.“ By A. Le Sueur. ‘*On the 
nebula of Argo, and on the spectrum of Jupiter.” By A. Le 
Sueur, We shall return to these papers next week. 
Geological Society, February 18. — Annual general 
meeting, Prof. T. H. Huxley, president, in the chair. The secre-. 
tary read the Reports of the Council, of the Library and Museum 
Committee, and of the Auditors. The general position of the 
society, as evinced by the state of its finances, and by the con- 
tinued increase in the number of its members, was stated to be 
very satisfactory. In presenting the Wollaston Gold Medal to 
John Evans, Esq,, for transmission to M. G. P. Deshayes, the 
president requested him to transmit it to M. Deshayes as an 
expression on the part of the Geological Society of the high esti- 
mation in which his services to paleontology and geology, 
especially in regard to the classification of the tertiary formation, 
are held by the geologists of this cousitry ; adding, that six years 
ago the council of this society demonstrated the interest which it 
took in M. Deshayes’s valuable investigations by awarding him _ 
the Donation-fund. Now that those researches, commenced just 
fifty years ago, are completed, and the labours of a life devoted 
to science are crowned by the publication of five great volumes 
containing descriptions and figures of all the mollusca of the 
Paris basin, it has seemed to the Council a fitting opportunity for 
bestowing the highest honour at its disposal upon the pupil, 
editor, and continuator of Lamarck, and the worthy successor of 
his great master in the Chair of Natural History in the Muséum 
d Histoire Naturelle. Mr, Evans acknowledged on the part of 
M. Deshayes, the award of the Wollaston Medal, and read a 
letter from M. Deshayes expressing his sense of the honour con- 
ferred upon him. The president presented the balance of the 
proceeds of the Wollaston Donation-fund to Mr. Evans, for 
transmission to M. Rouault, Keeper of the Geological Museum 
at Rennes, in aid of his researches upon the Paleontology of 
the Devonian and Silurian Rocks of Brittany, and remarked that 
the cosmopolitanism of science was well illustrated by the fact 
that all the honours at the disposal of the society this year are 
gladly accorded to foreigners.—The President then read his 
anniversary address, prefaced by biographical notices of deceased 
Fellows, including Prof, Brayley, F.R.S. ; Dr. Hermann yon 
Meyer; Dr. B. Shumard; Dr. Roget, F.R.S. ; Prof. Graham, 
F.R.S.; Prof. Jukes, F.R.S.; Dr. W. Clarke, F.R.S,; Mr 
J. W. Salter; the Vicomte d’Archiac, &c. The ballot for the 
council and officers was taken, and the following were duly 
elected for the ensuing year:—President: Mr. Joseph Prest- 
wich. Vice-Presidents: Sir P. de M. G. Egerton, R. A. C, 
Godwin-Austen, Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., Warrington W. 
Smyth. Secretaries: P. Martin Duncan, John Evans. Foreign 
Secretary: Professor D, T. Ansted. Treasurer: J. Gwyn 
Jeffreys. Council; Prof. D. T. Ansted, William Carruthers, 
W. Boyd Dawkins, P. Martin Duncan, Sir P. de M. G, 
Egerton, John Evans, David Forbes, J. Wickham Fiower, 
Capt. Douglas Galton, R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, Harvey B. 
Holl, J. Whitaker Hulke, Prof. T. H. Huxley, J. Gwyn Jeffreys, 
Sir Charles Lyell, George Maw, John Carrick Moore, Prof. John 
Morris, Joseph Prestwich, Warrington W. Smyth, Rey. W. S. 
Symonds, Rey. Thomas Wiltshire, Henry Woodward. 
Zoological Society, February 24.—Dr. E. Hamilton, V.P. 
in the chair. A communication was read from Mr. R. Swinhoe 
containing some information on the subject of the exact locality 
of the Amherst’s pheasant (Zhaumalea amtherstiea), which was 
stated to be the mountains between the Chinese province of 
Sechuen and Tibet.—A letter was read from Sir George Grey 
in reference to Professor Owen’s communication of a letter from 
Dr. Haast read at the previous meeting. Sir G. Grey was of 
opinion that there were good grounds for believing that the 
Dinornis had been extirpated by the direct ancestors of the 
present race of Maories.—A second letter was read addressed 
to ,the Secretary by Mr. W. H. Hudson on the ornithology 
of Buenos Ayres.—Mr. Sclater exhibited a specimen of a new 
lemur, which had been lately discovered by Mr. Van Dam in 
North-eastern Madagascar, and had been named by Mr. Pollen 
Propithecus damanius.—Messrs. C. H. T. and G. F. L. Marshall 
read some notes on the classification of the birds of the family 
Capitonide.—Two communications were read from Mr. R. 
Swinhoe on the white wag-tails (AZotaci/i) of China, and on a 
new species of Accentor from Northem China proposed to be called 
A. erythropygius.—Mr. P. L. Sclater read a paper on the deer 
living in the Society’s menagerie, amongst which there were 
stated to be examples of several recently described and very 
little known species. Mr. Sclater concluded his paper with 
remarks on the arrangement and the geographical distribution 
of the Cerzvde, and in particular of the species of the genus 
Cervus. The total number of Cervi recognised as probably 
