BIGELOW: COAST WATER EXPLORATION OF 1913. 261 
in the land climate of eastern North America. On this side of the 
North Atlantic the relation between land climate and ocean tempera- 
tures is exactly the reverse from what it is off the west coast of 
Europe, because the winds as a whole, and the great majority of cy- 
clonic disturbances, drift from the land out over the sea, instead of 
from sea toland. Hence the coast water must necessarily borrow its 
temperature, in large degree, from the land climate, instead of temper- 
ing the extremes of the latter, as is the case in the favored continent 
of Europe. Granting this, and the principle is so important, and so 
obvious, that it is remarkable that it has not been emphasized more 
strongly in the past, the fact that the water is coldest next the coast, 
and in enclosed troughs, with a steady rise of temperature, depth for 
depth, passing off shore, is at once explained, for the cold winds of 
winter would necessarily be most effective as cooling agents near shore. 
And they would become progressively less so, further and further from 
land, being warmed by the absorption of heat from the sea water over 
which they blow. The change from our torrid summer to frigid win- 
ter, with its prevalent off shore winds, sufficiently explains the rapid 
cooling of the coast water in autumn and winter. Conversely, solar 
| warming and the warm land winds of spring and summer are the 
| only agencies which could produce the very rapid warming of the 
| surface, which characterizes our coastal zone at that season; for if 
the change were due to flooding by Gulf Stream water, salinity 
‘would rise correspondingly, something which does not happen until 
|the surface water has warmed by some 25°-30° F, if at all (p. 188). 
/The change in land climate, with latitude, is an obvious explanation 
jfor the rise in surface and subsurface temperatures over the conti- 
_nental shelf from north to south. Still another continental influence, 
_\which must play a part in chilling the coast water is the low tempera- 
ture of the river water, and the river ice which enters the sea in spring; 
put this can hardly have as much effect south of Cape Cod as supposed 
oy Tizard (1907). 
The Gulf of St. Lawrence affords an excellent example of the degree 
jo which winter cooling takes place, and of the rapidity with which 
he temperature falls in autumn, in an enclosed basin under the in- 
uence of the rigorous climate of eastern North America, for its low 
emperature 1 is certainly due to local causes (Kriimmel, 1907). Were 
he Gulf of Maine as nearly enclosed as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
would reproduce the temperature of the latter even more closely 
jan is now the casé¢, the northern part of the former being separated 
om the southern part of the latter by only forty miles of latitude. 
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