of the Fishery Board for Scotland 



northern central part of the ocean, with variable winds of not much force 

 between the Azores and Western Europe. 



' In the vicinity of the Azores the pressure has been about normal, 

 but the centre of the high area has been to northward and eastward of 

 its average position. 



August. — ' The weather over the North Atlantic during the month has 

 been remarkably fine. South of the 50th parallel the weather has been 

 continually good, excepting a few reports of moderate gales received from 

 vessels east of Newfoundland, due to areas of low pressure passing over 

 far to the northward. 



'East of the 40th meridian anti-cyclones have prevailed over the 

 steamer routes nearly the entire month, causing northerly or easterly 

 winds over the British Isles and coast of Western Europe. The centre 

 of the high area being so far to the northward of its usual position 

 caused the paths of the lows to be deflected much further to the north- 

 ward than usual.' 



The Bulletin Mensuel du Bureau Central Meteorologique de France, and 

 the Daily Weather Reports of the British Meteorological Office, tell the 

 same story of unusually high pressure west and south-west of the 

 British Isles during July, giving light westerly winds, and keeping such 

 depressions as appeared far to the northward. These publications give 

 the additional information that depressions tended to move south east- 

 wards from the direction of Iceland into the North Sea, and we accord- 

 ingly get as a general result for the whole period that south of the 

 entrance to the Faeroe-Shetland Channel, as far as to the Azores, the usual 

 southerly component of the winds was either absent or abnormally weak, 

 while north and west of the channel the prevailing winds were northerly, 

 often north-westerly, sometimes north-easterly. 



It thus appears that the usual drift coming up the Eaeroe-Shetland 

 Channel from the Atlantic was, as a current, abnormally weak, owing to 

 the absence of southerly winds over the areas to south and west of the 

 Wy ville Thomson Ridge. At the surface, and for some 30 to 50 fathoms 

 below it, the movement was not only arrested but reversed ; and the 

 colder surface water from the Norwegian Sea made its way as a surface 

 layer apparently some distance south of Station VI. This water, be it 

 noted, probably passed up the Faeroe Channel in the spring, and may 

 have received but a slight admixture of surface water from further north. 



The southward movement of water in the upper strata would naturally 

 tend to cause a slight descending motion along the borders of the con- 

 tinental shelf where that shelf extends in an east to west direction, and 

 to this the lowering of temperature below the 100 fathom line at Station 

 II. may possibly be ascribed. At the northern end of the channel, how- 

 ever, it would produce a relief of pressure at the greater depth, and 

 check the slow southward movement of the ice-cold water below the 

 level of the Wyville Thomson Ridge. This check, and the great weaken- 

 ing of the warm current moving northward over it, would greatly 

 lessen the 1 undertow ' just at the Ridge, and the consequent mixture of 

 hot and cold water occurring along the Faeroe-Shetland Channel. Hence 

 we find temperatures below 200 fathoms lower than those observed in 

 1893, especially at Stations III. and V., where the effect of mixing was 

 then most marked ; and between the motionless bottom layer and the 

 southward drift at the surface the feeble stream of unmixed Atlantic 

 water shows itself as a warm wedge extending between 35 fathoms and 

 160 fathoms at Station VI., and tapering away to somewhere between 50 

 and 100 fathoms at Stations III. and V. 



Averaging the differences of temperature between the surface and the 



287 



