﻿54 Canadian Record of Science. 



enormous volume of warmer water being daily poured 

 into it by the St. Lawrence and numerous other smaller 

 Canadian rivers. Although the point has not been 

 properly established on both sides of this river's great 

 estuary by thermometric tests, yet it would appear from 

 surface and deep sea readings taken by the writer near 

 Murray Bay on the north coast (46J° F. at surface, 38J° 

 at 17 fms., and 38^"^ at 31 fms. — all on 5th August), 

 and from the fact that whilst bathing during the summer 

 season is somewhat exceptional on that side, it is more 

 general on the south coast, that these warmer waters of 

 the River St. Lawrence are also deflected to the southern 

 coast or right hand in their progress towards the sea. 



The evaporation over the broad surface of the Gulf 

 must be very great, but does it counterbalance the enor- 

 mous masses of fresh water which are being constantly 

 poured into it from the Great Lakes and the rivers 

 of Canada ? Whether it does so or not, if there is an 

 outward current of warmer water deflected to the 

 southerly side of these two outlets from the Gulf, there 

 must be some fully compensating inward flow of colder 

 water either reversely parallel to it or underneath, just as 

 in the case of the Black Sea. Although claiming that the 

 current at the Straits of Belle Isle is fundamentally tidal 

 in its nature, Mr. Dawson, nevertheless, admits that under 

 normal conditions and when both surface current and 

 undercurrent in the two directions are taken into 

 account, the difference on the average is in favor of a 

 greater inward flow from the east, and that the actual 

 flow throughout the year appears also, on the whole, to be 

 greater in the inward direction from the east than 

 outward from the west. Between Newfoundland and 

 Cape Breton he, however, finds a current running out 

 of the Gulf on the western or Nova Scotia side, and into 

 the Chilf on the eastern or Newfoundland side. 



There are other very important considerations which 



