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The Conditions off the Coast of California. 



In the summer the removal of the surface water off the 

 coast of California to the south and southwest in the form of the 

 so-called California current results in the immediate appearance 

 at the surface of the cold, supposedly abyssal, water. 



From the strictly antarctic character of the entire crinoid 

 fauna of this region, here attaining to a vertical distribution 

 of 1 014 fathoms and a temperature range of 1 i°. 6 Fahrenheit, 

 as a result of the seasonal churning of the water, I believe that 

 this so-called abyssal water is not truly abyssal in the strict 

 and commonly accepted sense, but is drawn mainly, if not 

 entirely, from the northward extension of the Humbolt current, 

 and is of antarctic origin ; that is, that it is not the stagnant 

 water of the abysses drawn to the surface, but is the northward 

 moving peripheral water of the deep Pacific basin. 



Along the eastern shores of the middle and north Pacific 

 the rotation of the earth would tend to maintain the integrity 

 of a current formed by the peripheral portion of the abyssal 

 water moving northward, for this water is heavier than the 

 water of the layers above it, and is therefore more influenced 

 by the rotation of the earth, while at the same time this rotation, 

 constantly thrusting it to the right, tends to restrict it to a 

 smaller area, and thus to preserve its forward motion. 



Conditions similar to those off the Californian coast occur 

 off the northwestern coast of Africa ; and I believe that the 

 water which is here similarly brought to the surface is not the 

 water of the abysses properly speaking, but the water brought 

 northward originally by the Benguela current. 



The Oceanographic Conditions in the Northeastern Pacific. 



Off Washington and in the Gulf of Alaska the species of 

 the genus Florometra have a bathymétrie range of 634 fathoms, 

 and a temperature range of io°.8 Fahrenheit. These ranges 



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