Maech 11, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



249 



tude in that region. The tides of the Pacific are 

 not likely to make themselves felt in that vast ex- 

 panse through a strait only some forty miles in 

 width and less than thirty fathoms in depth, with 

 far-stretching shoal approaches on either side. 

 On the other hand, the relation of the Polar to 

 the Atlantic Ocean is so intimate as to amount to 

 identity. The continuity of the Atlantic basin 

 has been demonstrated by soundings up to and 

 beyond the 80th parallel. The channel between 

 Spitzbergen and the European coast is about a 



But the laws of the tides in the circumpolar 

 seas, a cul de sac into which run the tides of 

 an ocean stretching from pole to pole, and where 

 the absence of controlling astronomical forces 

 is fav'orable to tidal anarchy, can only be 

 determined with certainty from long series of ob- 

 servations at stations generously distributed about 

 the polar basin. The establishment and mainte- 

 nance by Lieutenant Greely of one such station, 

 and his preservation of the records of observation, 

 will be regarded as substantial services to science 



2 3 

 Fig. 13. 



4 5 6 T 8 9 JO IJ 12 J3 i4 15 ]6 



-Group op five thousand five hundeed words prom Caesar's 'Commentaries.' 



J7 



hundred fathoms deep and four hundred miles in 

 width ; that between Spitzbergen and Greenland 

 has about the same width, but is one, two, and 

 three miles deep. The tides of the circumpolar 

 seas cannot avoid forming a part of the Atlantic 

 system. As to the tide in Lady Franklin Bay, it 

 seems almost a certainty that it is chiefly an At- 

 lantic tide that has flowed up through the Spitz- 

 bergen Sea, rounded Greenland, and entered Robe- 

 son Channel from the north, where it probably 

 meets another and fainter Atlantic tide from the 

 south, which, delayed and spent in the shallow 

 West Greenland seas, comes into Lady Franklin 

 Bay two or three hours later. 



by all interested in this branch of physical in- 

 quiry. A. S. C. 



AGRICULTURE IN ENGLAND IN 1886. 



In outlining, in a recent number of Science (ix. 

 No. 212), the reports presented by the British com- 

 mission on the existing trade depression, special at- 

 tention was called to the fact that it was admitted 

 on all hands that the agricultural classes were the 

 worst sufferers. The lower prices of agricultural 

 produce were very far-reaching in their conse- 

 quences. For this reason the latest returns as to 

 that produce are of timely interest ; and we con- 



