145 , 



fartlier north is bound to be reflected in wider swings and fluctua- 

 tions in the region around the Tail where its complexion continually 

 glows and fades. A dwindling in the flow may leave isolated patches 

 of polar water, which have been freighted here during a flood period. 

 Such icy pools left along the southwest slope become engulfed and 

 finally absorbed by the warmer, Salter Atlantic water. In the deeper 

 layers such Arctic relics appear to work westward more or less, 

 following around the continental edge, as evidenced by records 

 which sometimes show extreme westerl}- drifts to bergs in the oceanic 

 triangle west of the Tail of the Grand Bank. 



Attention has been called to the size and position of the cold 

 northern current throughout the ice season around the Atlantic 

 side of the Grand Bank. It is impossible to set definite bounds as to 

 salinity and temperature within which the water from the north 

 will fall. At times the mixture is in such proportion along the zone 

 of transition which lies both inshore and offshore of the Labrador 

 Current that it is quite impossible to determine water bounds. 

 The water, however, which is to be found every ice season around the 

 continental edge of the Grand Bank is too salt for Bank water and 

 too fresh for Atlantic water. That it is not indigenous, inactive 

 slope water (i. e., a transitionary stage in offshore expansion) is 



