1898-99.] Admiral Makaroff on Oceanographic Problems. 401 
it to the corresponding nation ; this will give means to collect 
enormous information. The observations of every ship in a certain 
square ought to be placed on a separate card. Boxes containing 
these cards, say for the North Pacific, will not occupy more space 
than can be found in a good-sized bookcase. 
When a new journal of a ship is received, temperatures of sea 
water observed on board that ship should be placed on the cards, 
and the cards put in their corresponding place. In this way we 
shall, each year, become richer in the knowledge of the tempera- 
ture of the surface water, and no observation will be lost. Every 
observation will increase our knowledge of the temperature of sea 
water. It will be a real pleasure to see that progress of knowledge, 
and if ever this system or any other system be accepted, it will 
help us to study many details, which, up to the present^ time, are 
unknown. From time to time, each nation would publish its 
information for the use of scientists and seamen of all nations. 
I wish to draw your attention to one instrument of my design, 
which will be of great service in the study of the temperature of 
the sea. Direct observations of the temperature even when taken 
every hour do not show the exact limits of the different currents. 
Ships nowadays steam so quickly that in one hour they cover 
sometimes as much as 20 miles. The direct observations only 
show that the limit of the current was somewhere between the two 
places of observation, but they do not show whether the dividing 
line is sharp or not. In the case of the Strait of La Perouse a ship 
might pass the cold region without noticing it at all. In one of 
the log books from which I extracted the temperature of the sea, 
I found recorded temperatures of about 15°, then 5°, and then 
again 15°, evidently at that time the reading of 5° was taken at 
the very place of the strip of cold water. Somebody examining 
the journal afterwards added 10 to the 5 making it 15, probably 
thinking that the men who made the observations were in error, 
while he (the corrector) really made the mistake himself. 
The self-recording instruments are very important for studying 
the temperature of the sea, and on Plate IX. I show you the 
arrangement I proposed for that purpose. When the ship is under 
way, water enters into one part of the cock, washes round to the 
thermometer, and returns to the sea, thus keeping the thermometer 
