438 P. H. Carpenter's Physical Investigations on the "Valorous." 



35° being met with at almost equal intervals. There was here, 

 therefore, no indication of any contrary movement of different 

 strata of water, or of any special superheating of the superficial 

 stratum. But the case was very different with the next 

 much deeper sounding which was taken about a degree further 

 south, but still toward the middle of Davis Strait : for there 

 was here a surface-stratum of 45°, but of such extremely small 

 thickness, that the isotherm of 40° was reached in about fifteen 

 fathoms ; from 40° to 38° the interval was nearly the same as 

 in the previous sounding ; but below 38° the descent was so 

 slow that 37° was not reached until .nearly 800 fathoms, and on 

 the bottom at 1100 fathoms the temperature was stall -»>h . 

 At the next station, latitude 62° 6' N., longitude 55° 56' W., 

 (that is, another degree further south, and at about the same 

 distance from the Greenland coast), a depth of LS50 fat i as 

 was met with ; the surface-temperature was still 45° ; but the 

 bottom-temperature was found to be 34-6*°, as in the 410 

 fathoms sounding. The next temperature-sounding was taken 

 nearly three degrees further south and five and one-half deirrees 

 to the west, namely, in latitude 59° 10' N., longitude 50 25 

 W. ; that is, a little to the south of Cape Farewell, but still six 

 degrees to the west of it : here the surface-temperature was 

 still 45°; but the bottom -temperature at 1,750 fan 

 sunk to 33 4°. Finally, a set of serial soundings was taken 

 before rounding Cape Farewell, about a degree further south 

 and four degrees east : the surface-temperature had then risen 

 to 49° ; but the isotherm of 40° was reached at about fifty 

 fathoms, that of 39° at about ninety fathoms, and that of 38° 

 at about 160 fathoms ; while below this the descent of the 

 thermometers was extremely slow down to the isotherm of 37°, 

 which lay at about 1050 fathoms — becoming more rapid, how- 

 ever, beneath this, so that 36° was reached at about 1400 

 fathoms, 35° at about 1500, and 34*3° on the bottom at 1660 

 fathoms. 



Now these phenomena seem to me to point very distinctly 

 to the existence (1) of a superheated layer, which is slowly 

 moving up Davis Strait, and la excess of 



temperature as it proceeds north, as shown by the gradual 

 approach of the isotherms to the surface ; (2) of a neutral inter- 

 mediate layer, 1,000 fathoms or more in thickness, marked out 

 by the extreme uniformity of its temperature, which indicates 

 -n ; and (3) of a deep cold layer, which as 

 clearly derives its low temperature from a northern source, as 

 the uppermost stratum does from a southern, and which must, 



The temperatures at Station VI seem at first sight rather 

 anomalous when compared with those of Stations VII-X— the 



