PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE GULF OF MAINE 
515 
tabulated by Rathbun (1887). The very large number of temperatures taken on the 
lightships in the ordinary routine since that time have not been examined critically, 
however. 
The Albatross occupied a large number of dredging stations along the offshore 
slope of Georges Bank during 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, and 1887, but only five of her 
serial readings and a few of the bottom records fall within the limits of the Gulf of 
Maine . 4 An extensive series of temperatures taken by Dr. W. C. Kendall at the 
surface and at small depths in the western part of the gulf, in connection with mack- 
erel investigations carried out by the Grampus in 1897, also deserves mention (p. 594) . 
A gap follows in the thermal history of the gulf until the summer and autumn 
of 1904, when the Tidal Survey of Canada took a large number of surface and subsur- 
face temperatures in the Bay of Fundy region and off the west coast of Nova Scotia 
(Dawson, 1905, 1922). Many of these were repeated in 1907. In July, 1908, a few 
readings were taken from the Grampus in the region of Nantucket Shoals. 
The reestablishment of the biological station of the Biological Board of Canada 
at St. Andrews, at the mouth of the St. Croix River, in 1908 marks an epoch in the 
oceanographic study of the Bay of Fundy region. The first published survey of the 
temperature and density (the latter determined by hydrometer) in the neighbor- 
hood of St. Andrews was carried out in July, 1910 (Copeland, 1912). Since then 
the taking of temperatures and of salinity has been a regular part of the station’s 
work, and such of the data as have been published are mentioned below. 
Although the preceding summary may seem somewhat formidable, very little 
was yet known of the subsurface temperatures of the offshore parts of the gulf, even 
in summer, for only one small area in its western side had been examined with 
satisfactory instruments. Nor had anything been learned of its winter state or of 
the salinity of its deep waters at any time of year until 1912. In that year the 
United States Bureau of Fisheries and the Museum of Comparative Zoology jointly 
undertook the general oceanographic exploration of the gulf, which, continued to 
date under my direction, has been the foundation of this report and of those that 
have preceded it (Bigelow, 1914 to 1926; Bigelow and Welsh, 1925). 
The first fruits were the serial records at 46 stations (10001 to 10046) in the 
northern half of the gulf during that July and August (p. 978; Bigelow, 1913, 1914), 
including the first determinations of the salinity of the water of the gulf by the 
titration method (p. 976) that for some years had been in general use on the other 
side of the Atlantic. This, subsequently, has been a routine part of our station work. 
Observations were taken bimonthly off Gloucester by the Blue Wing during the 
winter of 1912-1913; north of Cape Cod during the following spring by W. W. 
Welsh (stations 10047 to 10056; W. W. Welsh stations 1 to 32; and Bigelow, 1914a); 
also a few temperatures and water samples between Massachusetts Bay and Georges 
Bank by Thomas Douthart and W. F. Clapp (table, p. 980) . 
The Grampus carried out a general survey of the western and northern parts of 
the gulf in the summer of 1913 (stations 10057 to 10061, 10085 to 10112, p. 982; Bigelow, 
1915), as well as of the coastal waters between the longitudes of Marthas Vineyard and 
Chesapeake Bay. This was followed by a more comprehensive oceanographic exami- 
nation of the offshore banks, as well as of the inner parts of the gulf and of the coastal 
* For these Albatross data see Townsend (1901, dredging stations 2053, 2054, 2060-2064, 2068, and 2522). 
