P. K Carpenter's Physical Investigations on the "Valorous." 439 



isotherm of 37° here coming up within 200 fathoms of the sur- 

 face, while at only a degree farther south it lies at nearly 800 

 fathoms; and a bottom-temperature of 34-6^ being found at 

 410 fathoms at Station VI, while at Station VIII it is only 

 reached at 1,350 fathoms. But the anomaly disappears u hen 

 lly increasing depth and the tendency of the coldest 

 water to gravitate to the bottom are taken into account : for it 

 appears, from the temperature-soundings taken further north 

 toward Disco Island by. the Swedish ship u Ingegera." that 

 water as cold as this, and even much colder (31° being recorded 

 in one instance), is there found at depths varying between fifty- 

 eight and 185 fathoms ; and it can scarcely be doubted that 

 the water which is chilled by the more severe cold of Baffin's 

 Bay is here flowing down the slope of Davis Strait. Again, it 

 is at first sight an anomaly to find at Station VIII a bottom- 

 temperature of 34-6° at 1,350 fathoms, while the bottom-tem- 

 peratures both to the north and to the south of it are 346° ; 

 but this only shows that the coldest polar water is flowing 

 south through some deeper channel, perhaps in the western 

 half of Davis Strait* And the same explanation applies to 

 the yet more remarkable fact that a bottom-temperature of 

 33 -4 = was met with near the mouth of Davis Strait, when no 

 such water was met with further north. But that even this 

 does not carry down the coldest water of the Arctic basin, is 

 obvious from the fact brought to light by the " Porcupine " 

 temperature-soundings in the "Lightning Channel," (between 

 the north of Scotland and the Faroe Islands), over a large part 

 of whose bottom we found the temperature to range two 

 degrees, or even more, below 32°. 



The next temperature-* mndii _\ t. \<o\\ on the 17th of Au- 

 gust almost exactly in the meridian of Cape Farewell, and not 

 quite two degrees to the south of it, gave, like No. IX, a 

 bottom-temperature of 334° at 1,860 fathoms ; so that it 

 seemed pretty clear that this is the temperature of the coldest 

 vater t 1 at can find its way into the North Atlantic along either 

 the .vest or the east coast of Greenland. And from the depth 

 at which the isotherm* 35° was found to lie in the 1660 fathoms 

 serial sounding, it is obvious that the stratum between 35° and 

 33-4° must be here a very thin one ; while the upward slope 



any wate^movh- . r T the equator will have a westerly ten- 



dency in virtue of its deficiency of easterly momentum ; just as water moving from 



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not encountered in any of the earlier temperature-soundings taken m the South 



