Even more interesting, perhaps, to many, are the results which have been obtained respecting the varying temperatures of deep-sea regions. The peculiarity just considered is, indeed, a consequence of such variations; but the fact itself is at least as interesting as the consequences which flow from it. It throws light on the long-standing controversy respecting the oceanic circulation. It has been found that the depths of the equatorial and tropical seas are colder than those of the North Atlantic. In the tropics the deep-sea temperature is considerably below the freezing-point of fresh water; in the deepest part of the Bay of Biscay the temperature is several degrees above the freezing-point. Thus one learns that the greater part of the water which lies deep below the surface of the equatorial and tropical seas comes from the Antarctic regions, though undoubtedly there are certain relatively narrow currents which carry the waters of the Arctic seas to the tropics. The great point to notice is that the water under the equatorial seas must really have travelled from polar regions. A cold of 30 degrees can be explained in no other way. We see at once, therefore, the explanation of those westerly equatorial currents which have been so long a subject of contest. Sir John Herschel failed to prove that they are due to the trade winds, but Maury failed equally to prove that they are due to the great warmth and consequent buoyancy of the equatorial waters. In fact, while Maury showed very convincingly that the great system of oceanic circulation is carried on _despite_ the winds, Herschel proved in an equally convincing manner that the overflow conceived by Maury should result in an easterly instead of a westerly current. Recently the theory was put forward that the continual process of evaporation going on in the equatorial regions leads to an indraught of cold water in bottom-currents from the polar seas. Such currents coming _towards_ the equator, that is, travelling from latitudes where the earth’s eastwardly motion is less to latitudes where that motion is greater, would lag behind, that is, would have a westwardly motion. It seems now placed beyond a doubt that this is the true explanation of the equatorial ocean-currents. Such are a few, and but a few, among the many interesting results which have followed from the recent researches of Dr. Carpenter and Professor Thomson into the hitherto little-known depths of the great sea. (From the _Spectator_, December 4, 1869.) FOOTNOTES: [11] This opinion Dr. Carpenter has since somewhat modified. It will be remembered, of course, that the evidence derived from the nature of superposed strata is in no way affected by what is shown above to hold with adjacent deposits. _THE TUNNEL THROUGH MONT CENIS._