SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 305. 



servations on certain asters at stations near 

 Lake Erie, Boston, the White Mountains, New 

 York City, etc., at each of which he has kept 

 certain varying species under scrutiny for some 

 years, to determine their range of variation in 

 nature under unchanged environment. 



Professor Underwood reported herbarium 

 work at Kew, the British Museum, and Paris, 

 with particular reference to the herbarium of 

 Cosson which is very rich in ferns, especially of 

 South America and the West Indies. An inter- 

 esting week was given to a trip to Biarritz, 

 Spain, and the Landes, with views of the tur- 

 pentine industry now flourishing among pine 

 forests of the Landes originally planted as a 

 protection from the sand-dunes. These pines 

 average about ten inches in diameter. Maize 

 was seen cultivated in the Basque provinces and 

 to Bordeaux, the tops being cut off to favor the 

 ripening of the ears, as in our South. 



Edward S. Buegess, 



Secretary. 



NOTES ON OCEANOGRAPHY. 



THE DEEPEST FIOED ON THE LABRADOR COAST. 



An expedition on the schooner Brave spent 

 the past summer exploring the northeastern 

 coast of Labrador. Twenty- one soundings in 

 Nachvak Bay sufficed to show that it is a typical 

 fiord. The line of dangerous reefs two miles 

 to seaward from^the mouth of the bay belongs 

 to a rock -sill which bars off the inlet from the 

 deeper water of the Atlantic. Already at the 

 mouth the depth is 107 fathoms. Six miles to 

 westward, in the axis of the bay, the depth is 

 110 fathoms ; for the next six miles it averages 

 100 fathoms. Then the bottom rapidly shoals 

 to a narrow bar covered by no more than 18 

 fathoms. On account of its continuity with a 

 projecting spur of bed rock on each side, it was 

 concluded that the bar is composed of the same 

 material. From the summit of this submerged 

 ridge a second steep slope leads to a depth of 80 

 fathoms which persists to a point opposite the 

 Hudson Bay Company's Post. Twenty miles 

 from the mouth, a second bar of similar com- 

 position gave only 16 fathoms ; it is flanked by 

 depths of 60 fathoms. The bay has two branches, 

 each heading about 25 miles from the bay-mouth, 

 and is from one to two miles wide. Precipitous 



cliffs from 2,000 to 3,400 feet high appear in the 

 profile of the U-shaped cross-section which is 

 the rule in all parts of the bay. The deepest 

 sounding recorded on the Admiralty charts for 

 the bays of this coast is 100 fathoms in Hamil- 

 ton Inlet. 



The temperatures on August 30th were : at 

 110 fathoms, — 1°. 7 C. (29° P.) ; at 50 fathoms, 

 — 1°.4 C. (29°. 4 F.) ; at 20 fathoms — 1°.2 C. 

 (29°. 9 F.) ; at the surface, + 6°. 8 C. (44°. 3 F.). 

 The temperature of the water from 20 fathoms 

 downward to 50 fathoms is colder than the 

 water at corresponding depths in the open 

 Atlantic outside. The bottom temperature is 

 very close to that characteristic of the envelope 

 of brackish water formed about a piece of sea- 

 ice melting in normal open-Atlantic water. 

 Drift-ice finally left Nachvak Bay this year as 

 late as the first week in July. 



DRIFT-ICE AND THE THEORY OF OCEAW 

 CURRENTS. 



The extraordinary smoothness of the sea 

 covered by drift ice, even when the pans are 

 widely spaced, is truly astonishing to one mak- 

 ing his first voyage in such waters. His sail- 

 ing ship may be favored with a fresh breeze and 

 yet the ocean surface be quite level, save for 

 the minute rippling characteristic of a small 

 pond ruffled by a summer breeze ; ground -swell 

 does not exist. It is a matter of common 

 knowledge among the fishermen of the Atlantic 

 Labrador coast that the Labrador current, or 

 'tide,' as they invariably express it, often 

 shows high velocity, although its surface, for 

 a length of a thousand miles and a breadth of 

 from one hundred to three hundred miles, is 

 covered with loose pan- ice. At such times, the 

 wind is, or has just been, strong and from a 

 northerly quarter. We are justified in believ- 

 ing that the pans act as the sails which, In ice- 

 free waters are represented by wind-waves. 

 Floes and pans project above the surface from 

 one to twenty feet or more. They may be 

 expected to exert a coercive foi-ce on the film 

 of i-elatively fresh water derived from the melt- 

 ing of the ice in contact with the heavier salt 

 water beneath. According with the behavior 

 of such ' dead water,' as described by Nansen 

 and others, the light surface layer will tend to 



