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From southwestern South America this heaped up border 

 of the water of the Pacific abysses, which is moving rapidly 

 northward, continues, passing under the superficial equatorial 

 and other currents, to and along the Central American coast,, 

 and thence northward along the North American coast to 

 Alaska, westward along the Aleutian Islands^ beneath the 

 warm and (here) superficial Kuro-Siwo, thence southwestward 

 to the Kuril Islands and Japan, reaching as far as Tokyo and 

 Sagami Bays. 



In its passage beneath the Kuro-Siwo along the Aleutian 

 Islands and then southwestward to southern Japan this current 

 becomes progressively weaker, for it has already lost much 

 of its energy in certain lateral movements (to be considered 

 later), and is in constant competition with the increasingly 

 powerful Kuro-Siwo, a competition which is particularly 

 disasterous on account of the fact that both currents are of 

 practically the same salinity, and therefore, though of different 

 temperatures, their waters do not keep separate, but tend to 

 mingle. The effect of the Kuro-Siwo above it is rapidly 

 to retard its progress, and to force its raised level down into 

 the general level of the abyssal, comparatively stagnant, water 

 of the mid Pacific, if this water may be considered to possess 

 a general level. Off southern Japan it disappears entirely, and 

 merges slowly into the abyssal water. This is indicated by 

 the fact that its crinoids, which are not fitted for an abyssal 

 habitat, do not extend beyond this point. 



Though it is easiest to do as we have just done, to speak 

 of this abyssal current as involving only the outer border of 

 the abyssal water just beneath the superficial surface currents, 

 still it must be borne in mind that this movement of the water 

 is by no means confined to this border. If the fragmentary 

 evidence afforded by the distribution of the abyssal stalked 

 crinoids is of any value, it would appear that this abyssal current 

 involved the flow of water, though probably with a velocity 

 decreasing in proportion to the depth, to at least 1600 fathoms. 



