Deoembeb 9, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



841 



regret that this opportunity should have been 

 so lightly passed over by a writer with every 

 appearance of unusual fitness to improve it. 

 Frederic Lyman Wells 



SCIEXTIFIC J0UR:!fAL8 AND ARTICLES 

 The Internationale Revue der Gesamten 

 Hydrohiologie und Hydrographie published 

 at Leipzig with an editorial board consisting 

 of Dr. Bjorn Helland-Hansen (Bergen), Pro- 

 fessor George Karsten (Halle), Professor 

 Charles A. Kofoid (Berkeley), Professor 

 Albrecht Penck (Berlin), Dr. Carl Wesen- 

 berg-Lund (Copenhagen), Professor Priedrich 

 Zschokke (Basel) with Professor E. Woltereck 

 (Leipzig) as editor-in-chief, has with the be- 

 ginning of volume 3 enlarged its scope and 

 modified the form of its publication. In ad- 

 dition to the Revue proper, which will be is- 

 sued in six parts per year forming an annual 

 volume of 600 pages, there will be also bio- 

 logical and hydrographical supplements, form- 

 ing annual volumes of 300 pages each, a 

 Jahresbericht of literature in the hydrobio- 

 logical and hydrographical fields, of about 300 

 pages, and a quarto series of monographs. The 

 Revue proper will contain shorter original ar- 

 ticles, critical summary of special fields of 

 investigation, reviews of pertinent literature 

 from various countries and of important 

 works, news items regarding biological sta- 

 tions, expeditions, university instruction in 

 the field of the Revue, etc. The supplement 

 volumes will contain the more extensive 

 papers with plates and the monograph series, 

 the still larger reports of expeditions, lake 

 surveys, etc., and the more extensive biolog- 

 ical memoirs. Contributions for the journal 

 and papers for review may be sent to the 

 American editor, Professor Charles A. Kofoid, 

 Berkeley, California, or directly to the Editor- 

 in-Chief. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



•^ THE SARG.\SSO SEA 



SoiiEWHAT more than fifty years ago, 

 Maury^ announced that midway in the At- 



' M. F. Maury, " Physical Geography of the 

 Sea," new edition, New York, 1856, pp. 30, pi. vi. 



lantic, in a triangular space between the 

 Azores, Canaries and Cape Verde islands, the 

 sargasso sea embraces an area equalling the 

 Mississippi Valley in extent and so thickly 

 covered with gulf weed that the speed of ves- 

 sels is often impeded. To the eye at a little 

 distance it seems substantial enough to walk 

 on. His map represents the area of weed as 

 shaped like an hourglass, with the broader 

 space toward the west. It extends from 19° to 

 66° west longitude, the eastern portion from 

 17° to 30° and the western from 22° to 28° 

 north latitude. 



A few years later, Ansted' said that a con- 

 siderable space between 20° and 40° west longi- 

 tude and 15° to 30° north latitude is .some- 

 times so matted with brownish weed as to 

 hide the water, resembling a drowned meadow 

 on which one can walk. It holds trees and 

 plants from the Mississippi and Amazon. 



Thomson^ does not define the limits of the 

 sargasso sea, but places the northern border 

 near the Azores. He seems to think that it 

 extends to south from the Bermudas. The 

 floating islands of gulf weed are usually from 

 a couple of feet to two or three yards in diam- 

 eter, but he saw on one or two occasions fields 

 several acres in extent; and he thinks that 

 such expanses are probably more frequent 

 near the center of the area of distribution. 

 They consist of a single layer of feathery 

 bunches of Sargassum hacciferum, not mat- 

 ted but floating nearly free of each other, only 

 enough entangled for the mass to keep to- 

 gether. 



Carpenter' limited the area more closely, for 

 he says that the sargasso sea is comparatively 

 still water between 30° and 60° west longi- 

 ■ tude and 20° and 35° north latitude, into 

 which is gathered a considerable portion of the 

 drift or wreck of the north Atlantic. 



' D. F. Ansted, " Physical Geography," 2d ed., 

 Philadelphia, 1867, p. 148. 



'C. Wy^-ille Thomson, "The Atlantic," New 

 York, 1878, II., pp. 15, 16, 24. 



* W. B. Carpenter, " Encyclopedia Brittanica," 

 1887, III., p. 20. 



