Ocean Currents

Abstract

IN the report published in NATURE (vol. xiv., p. 492) of an address given at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association, September 11, by Sir C. Wyville Thomson, and revised by the author, the following passage occurs:—

"We have come to the conclusion that this great mass of water is moving from the Southern Sea, and there seems to me to be very little doubt—although this matter will be required to be gone into carefully—that the reason why this water is moving from the Southern Sea in a body in this way, is that there is a greater amount of evaporation in the North Atlantic and over the northern hemisphere generally, than there is of precipitation, whereas it seems almost obvious that in the southern hemisphere in the huge band of barometric low pressure round the south pole, the precipitation is in excess of the evaporation."