May i, 1913] 



NATURE 



217 



■will be entrusted to a committee of fifteen mem- 

 bers, including- the Vice-Chancellor, the rector of 

 the Imperial College, and other members appointed 

 as to a bare majority by the Senate, and as to the 

 remainder by the governing body of the Imperial 

 College. University and King's Colleges would 

 each be represented by two of the appointees of 

 the Senate, and three-fourths of the whole would 

 consist of men of affairs and experts in the 

 branches of technology dealt with. The income 

 of the Imperial College and that available_ for the 

 ■departments of engineering in University and 

 King's Colleges would be at the disposal of this 

 ■committee; and the annual budget of the com- 

 mittee would be submitted to the Senate, the 

 governing body of the Imperial College, and the 

 •delegacies of King's and University Colleges. 



Such, in very brief outline, and with many 

 omissions, especially that of the important pro- 

 posals with regard to medical education, is the 

 scheme of the Commissioners, and they estimate 

 that 99,000/. a year will be required to cany it 

 into effect. They also consider that the head- 

 quarters of the University should be situate in 

 Bloomsbury. 



They have evidently done their best to meet the 

 reasonable desires of all interests. The professors 

 will have a freedom of teaching and testing their 

 pupils which they have not enjoyed before. The 

 internal students will be members of a more real 

 and efficient teaching university. External candi- 

 dates will probably have a better test than that 

 to which they have been accustomed. These 

 advantages must no doubt be purchased by some 

 sacrifices in so far as they touch vested interests, 

 but the whole scheme provides a much more satis- 

 factory prospect both for internal and external 

 students than that now in force. 



RECENT HYDROGRAPHIC 

 INVESTIGATIONS. 1 



IN the first of the publications referred to 

 below, Dr. Rolf Witting gives an account 

 •of the hydrographic observations — sea-tempera- 

 tures, salinities, oxygen-contents, current and ice 

 observations — made in the Gulfs of Bothnia and 

 Finland during the year 191 1 by the Finnish 

 hydrographers. The paper consists almost 

 entirely of tables, and these are models of clear 

 and orderly arrangement. 



The second publication contains the hydro- 

 graphic data collected during the voyage to 

 Spitsbergen, in 1910, of the Norwegian ship 

 Farm. The observations are discussed by Drs. 

 Helland-Hansen and Nansen, and deal chiefly 

 with the distribution of the Atlantic current in 

 the sea to the west of Spitsbergen. A con- 

 siderable part of the paper is taken up with a 



1 (l) " Abhandlungen der finlandischen hydrographischen-biologischen 

 Untersuchuneen." No. 10. Pp. 132 + 4 Taf. (Helsingfors. 1912.) 



(2) "The Sea West of Spitsbergen. The Oceanograohic Observations 

 of the Isachsen Spilzbergen Expedition in 1910." Vidensk. Skrifter. 

 1., Mat.-Naturv. Klasse, No. 12. Pp. 89+6 plates. iChristiania, 1912 ) 



(3) " Das Bodenwasser und die Abkiihling des Meeres." [nternat. Revue 

 ■Ges. Hydrol-iologic ti. Hydrographic. lid. v., Heft i. Pp. 42 + 12 figs, in 

 text. (Leipzig. 1912 ) 



discussion of the errors of the hydrographers who 

 had previously investigated the same area; but 

 in addition to this the authors describe the 

 gradual disappearance of the Atlantic current to 

 the north-west of Spitsbergen, as this water 

 becomes diluted by lighter arctic water flowing 

 round the South Cape. There is a discussion of 

 the parallelism in the annual variations in tem- 

 perature of this Atlantic Spitsbergen current, and 

 those of the Atlantic Norwegian stream. 

 "Temperature anomalies" are compared — that is, 

 the deviations, in each year, from the mean of 

 a number of years. The variations in tempera- 

 ture of the Atlantic Spitsbergen stream are, then, 

 roughly parallel to those of the Norwegian 

 stream, if the former are compared with the 

 latter of two years' previous date. That is, the 

 water flowing to the north from the Faroe- 

 Iceland channel takes about two years to travel 

 from the latitude of 62 N. to that of about 

 78 N. The variations in temperature anomaly 

 in the sea to the west of Spitsbergen are also 

 parallel to the variations in the area of ice-free 

 water in the Barentz Sea in May of the same year. 

 The third paper is of considerable interest and 

 importance. After indulging in a polemic with 

 reference to the erring Swedish hydrographers, 

 Dr. Nansen considers the mode of origin of the 

 cold water occupying the basins of the North 

 Atlantic and Norwegian seas. These water- 

 masses are very homogeneous. At the bottom 

 of the Norwegian Sea there is a salinity which 

 varies only between 34-90 per cent, and 34-92 per 

 cent., and thus requires very careful investi- 

 gation in order to disclose differences of a real 

 nature. The submarine Faroe-Iceland ridge divides 

 the northern ocean into two masses with respect to 

 the temperature of the bottom water : at a depth 

 of about 1000-2000 metres the water on the 

 Atlantic side of the ridge has a temperature of 

 about + 2 C. to + 3° C. ; on the Norwegian side 

 the temperature of the sea-water at the same 

 depth is about -0-5° C. to -08 C. 



How does this cold and dense bottom water 

 originate? It does not come from the southerly- 

 flowing, cold polar currents, for this water is of 

 low salinity, and in spite of its low temperature 

 its density is less than that of the bottom Atlantic 

 and Norwegian water, so that it cannot sink to 

 near the sea-bottom. It does not proceed from 

 melting ice, for water of such origin has_ also a 

 very low salinity, and, notwithstanding its low 

 temperature, its density is also low. The 

 southerly-flowing polar currents, indeed, protect 

 the underlying warmer water-masses from cool- 

 ing, and melting ice has the same effect.^ In both 

 cases the sea is covered with low-saline water 

 which does not mix by convection with that be- 

 neath it. In order that a vertical circulation, 

 accompanied by the formation of a cold bottom 

 stratum of water, may occur, certain conditions 

 are necessary : — (1) The water at the surface of 

 the sea must not be in rapid horizontal move- 

 ment ; the best conditions are those in the centre 

 of an area possessing a cyclonic circulation. 



NO. 



2270, VOL. 91] 



