THREE CRUISES OF THE “ BLAKE.” 
Commander Bartlett found no warm or cold bands, no distinet 
cold wall, and no bifurcations in the surface waters till he came 
off Hatteras. Near the shore, the current was greatly influ- 
enced by winds. The work of the “Blake” seems to show 
that the cold bands so called, which figure so largely in all early 
descriptions of the Gulf Stream, have no regularity, and only 
represent at any given moment the unceasing conflict going on 
between layers of water of different velocities and of different 
temperatures. Such a conflict is perhaps the well-known rip we 
encountered off Charleston, which may be caused by a struggle 
between portions of the Labrador current passing under the 
Gulf Stream. As the isotherms rise and fall with the irregu- 
larities of the bottom, where water accumulates or piles against 
ridges, hot and cold bands may be flowing one above the other. 
We need, however, more prolonged observations to show how 
far below the surface these bands extend. Commander Bartlett 
from the last Coast Survey investigations under his direction 
is inclined to consider the cold bands of the Gulf Stream as 
quite superficial." 
A cold current striking against a warmer stream that is flow- 
ing in the opposite direction may split it into more or less 
marked hot and cold bands. Bands similar to those of the 
Gulf Stream were observed by the “Challenger” in the Agu- 
lhas current off the Cape of Good Hope, and off Japan in the 
Kuro-Siwo. 
It is of course difficult to ascertain the part taken by the 
we must not forget to add to it that of 
the greater mass of heated water which 
is forced. north, and finds its way to the 
northernmost shores of Siberia, losing in 
its passage the heat it has accumulated 
within the tropics. бо that, while we 
cannot say that the Gulf Stream has dis- 
appeared, and has been replaced off the 
Banks of Newfoundland by the equato- 
rial drift, neither can we attribute to the 
Atlantie drift alone the masses of warm 
water found in the basin of the northern 
part of the North Atlantic. (See Figs. 
170 and 175.) 
1 In sailing from Halifax to the Ber- 
mudas, Sir Wyville Thomson speaks of 
passing alternate belts of cold and warm 
water. 
of May, the surface water was of a tem- 
perature of 17? C. ; at midnight it had 
fallen to 12? C., to rise again half an 
hour later to over 15? C. Thus, from 
the time the * Challenger" left Hali- 
fax with a surface temperature of 4° 
C., gradually rising to 109 C. until she 
encountered the Gulf Stream proper, 
marked by a rapid rise of temperature, 
she passed through alternate belts of 
warm and cooler surface waters varying 
between 18? C. and 239 C. 
Early in the morning of the 22d 
