Sea through the Aleutian passages, especially be- 

 tween the Komandorski Islands and the Near Islands, 

 northeastward across the deep Bering Sea to St. 

 Matthew Island; a counterclockwise eddy into the 

 Oyashio Current serves to return part of the water 

 to the Pacific while the remainder flows northward 

 through the Bering Strait. On the other hand, the 

 Hydrographic Office stream drift chart indicates that 

 the flow into the Bering Sea takes place only through 

 the narrow passages of the eastern Aleutian Islands 

 and that a weak southerly drift out of the Bering Sea 

 occurs from the Rat Islands to Kamchatka. The latter 

 point of view has been given recent support by 

 Scruton (personal communication) from geological in- 

 vestigations in the region of Attu Island. 



OBSERVATIONS 



Between 10 July and 26 July 1949, 27 oceano- 

 graphic stations were occupied in the southeastern 

 one-third of the deep Bering Sea and, in addition to 

 the 27 bathythermograph observations taken at the 

 oceanographic stations, 59 bathythermograms were 

 taken and 61 surface water samples obtained at loca- 

 tions between the stations (see Appendix, fig. Al). 



The bottle casts at the oceanographic stations 

 were made in the traditional manner using reversing 

 water bottles to obtain water samples and reversing 

 thermometers to obtain temperatures at 12 estimated 

 depths (10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 250, 400, 600, 

 800, 1000, and 1100 meters). Surface observations 

 were taken with a bucket and calibrated surface 

 thermometer. A portion of each water sample was 

 analyzed immediately aboard ship to determine the 

 concentration of dissolved oxygen. The remainder of 

 the water sample was drawn and sealed for later 

 laboratory chlorinity titration, as were surface water 

 samples obtained with each bathythermograph ob- 

 servation at the intermediate locations between oce- 



anographic stations. Data were reduced following 

 procedures given by LaFond. 11 



The data are reproduced in the Appendix. These 

 include Table 1, Oceanographic Station Data: tem- 

 perature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen at observed 

 and interpolated depths, plus density (a,), computed 

 sound velocity, and dynamic height anomaly (AD) 

 at interpolated depths for each oceanographic sta- 

 tion and Table 2, Sea-Surface and Meteorological 

 Observations. Figures A2 through A6 give the distri- 

 bution of temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen 

 at 0, 50, 100, 250, and 500 meters. The bathyther- 

 mograph data, which were used primarily in the 

 analysis of acoustical tests, and also in the inter- 

 pretation of temperature data in the near-surface 

 layers of oceanographic casts, are not reproduced 

 here but are on file at the U. S. Navy Hydrographic 

 Office, Washington, D. C. 



At a number of stations the oceanographic data 

 do not extend to a depth of 1100 meters as in- 

 tended. Because of severe weather conditions during 

 the midpart of the survey (stations 7 through 22) and 

 in spite of maneuvering the ship on station to reduce 

 wire angle, much difficulty in making the casts and 

 premature tripping of the water bottles were encoun- 

 tered due to the ship's roll. As a result, during the 

 reduction and analysis, a considerable number of 

 data had to be discarded as erroneous. Of the re- 

 ported data, the temperature-salinity relations were 

 found to be consistent, but in some cases the ob- 

 served depths are of uncertain reliability because 

 the functioning of unprotected thermometers seemed 

 erratic. In these cases, the curve giving the best fit 

 to the thermometric depths might result in a differ- 

 ence between the adopted depth and thermometric 

 depth of 10 to 20 meters at greater depths, whereas 

 a difference of less than 10 meters should be ex- 

 pected. These data have been included with appro- 

 priate notations. 



11 E. C. LaFond, Processing Oceanographic Data, Hydro- 

 graphic Office, 1951. 



