﻿56 Canadian Record of Science. 



permanent undercurrent does exist, because " during the 

 times that the current ran in fair correspondence with the 

 tides, when the conditions may be considered as normal, 

 the undercurrent was usually stronger than the surface 

 current, when the flow was from the east, and it was 

 always weaker than the surface current, when the How was 

 from the west." Whatever effect winds and tides do 

 produce at forty fathoms or more would be exerted 

 in favor of this inward undercurrent during a considerable 

 part of the year, since, as a whole, between easterly and 

 westerly influences, that from the east appears to be 

 the stronger of the two throughout the year. As to 

 the relative effects of high pressure areas over the Gulf 

 and over the Atlantic Ocean, off the Labrador and New- 

 foundland coasts, on the passage of water through the 

 Straits, our information is probably too meagre to enable 

 any opinion as yet to be formed beyond the general 

 fact that for the time a current would be formed. 



Another very interesting matter brought to light by 

 Mr. Dawson, and the further investigation of which 

 he recognizes as necessary, is that in the deep sea 

 temperatures, taken on the 16th August, in Cabot Straits, 

 between St. Paul Island and Cape Ray, the temperature — 

 especially towards the former place — which successively 

 fell from 59° at the surface to 31° and 33° F. at fifty 

 fathoms, appeared to rise again to 40^° F. at one hundred 

 and fifty fathoms. Some further careful tests of the 

 density and salinity of these waters as well as further 

 thermometric readings appear to be needed with a view to 

 tracing the influence here of the River St. Lawrence 

 waters. The anomaly can hardly be altogether ascribed 

 to areas of water of different temperatures floating ocean- 

 ward. In the fresh water of the River St. Lawrence, as it 

 leaves Lake Ontario, where the depth averages about 

 twelve fathoms, there appear in summer to be areas of 

 different temperature, but at any given depth, these areas 



