TEMPERATURE OF THE SEA. 
231 ) 
regions of the globe, as far as observations have 
been made, a contrary law prevails, the sea being- 
colder below than at the surface. This, at least, 
has been found to he generally the case in the 
Atlantic, in the Pacific, in the South Sea, and 
even in Baffin’s Bay. These facts then intimate, 
that the cause, whatever it may he, which occa¬ 
sions the peculiar warmth in the Spitzbergen Sea, 
at great depths, does not operate in other regions 
generally, and not even in the contiguous seas on 
the coast of Greenland. The increase of tempe¬ 
rature below, as I have formerly suggested, is pro¬ 
bably occasioned by a stream of water ascending 
towards the north, near the western coast of Spitz¬ 
bergen, which, on meeting with water near the 
ice of an inferior specific gravity, sinks below the 
surface, and becomes an under-current, counter 
to the prevalent superficial one running to the 
south-west *. It would therefore appear, that if 
this explanation be correct, the same counter un¬ 
der-current does not prevail on the coast of Green¬ 
land, but is confined, so far as observations on 
submarine temperature enable us to judge, to the 
seas contiguous to the western coasts of Norway 
and Spitzbergen.. 
As soon as the experiments on the tempera- 
* Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 2Q<>, 
