98 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
east, as found by the ALBaTROss in 1883 and 1885, together with the 
salinities, as pointed out above (p. 97) is good evidence that there is a 
flow of St. Lawrence water along the coast of Nova Scotia toward 
the southwest. And, finally, at least two wreck courses (Hautreux, 
1910) have been recorded with a southerly drift near Nova Scotia. 
But there are no wreck tracks nor iceberg tracks leading from the 
grand banks of Newfoundland toward Nova Scotia, such as might be 
expected were there any pronounced westerly drift of the Labrador 
current. The occasional occurrence of Arctic pelagic organisms in 
Massachusetts Bay and the Bay of Fundy, such as the medusa 
Ptychogena and the ctenophore Mertensia, neither of which has been 
able to establish itself in the Gulf, shows that there are occasional 
indraughts of the St. Lawrence water into the latter. But the fact 
that last summer the indrift was of Atlantic not St. Lawrence origin 
(p. 94), and the occasional record of tropical organisms, e. g., the 
siphonophore Physalia at Grand Manan, show that its influence is 
either sporadic, or seasonal, not constant. 
If any general conclusion can be drawn from the scanty oceano- 
graphic data yet available, it is that the Gulf of Maine owes its low 
temperature and salinity largely to local causes; 7. e., to its geographic 
position and partial isolation by the sill formed by George’s Bank; 
and that though there was an influx of ocean water in the summer of 
1912 from the edge of the Gulf Stream, in other years, or at other 
seasons, there are more or less sporadic indraughts of cold water flow- 
ing from the northeast. This water, however, probably has no con- 
nection with the Labrador Current, but comes from the St. Lawrence. 
PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THE PLANKTON. 
The following notes on the macroplankton, preliminary to the spe- 
cial reports on the various groups, are offered because no attempt 
seems to have been made to study the pelagic fauna of the Gulf as a 
whole; and because the collections and oceanographic data of the 
~Grampvus allow a correlation between its plankton at a given time 
and the physical factors of the water, at the same time and place. 
With these ends in view, our main efforts were directed toward quali- 
tative, rather than quantitative results, though we devoted as much 
attention to the latter as was practicable. The usual program of 
plankton work during the day time, was to use the no. 20 (bolting silk) 
net at or near the surface, and to tow the coarse four-foot net hori- 
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