e facts appear to be that the water of the Mediterranean is very
slightly denser than that of the Atlantic (1.0278 to 1.0265), and that
the deep water of the Mediterranean is slightly denser than that of the
surface; while the deep water of the Atlantic is, if anything, lighter
than that of the surface. Moreover, while a rapid superficial current is
setting in (always, save in exceptionally violent easterly winds) through
the Straits of Gibraltar, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, a deep
undercurrent (together with variable side currents) is setting out
through the Straits, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

Dr. Carpenter adopts, without hesitation, the view that the cause of this
indraught of Atlantic water is to be sought in the much more rapid
evaporation which takes place from the surface of the Mediterranean than
from that of the Atlantic; and thus, by lowering the level of the former,
gives rise to an indraught from the latter.

But is there any sound foundation for the three assumptions involved
here? Firstly, that the evaporation from the Mediterranean, as a whole,
is much greater than that from the Atlantic under corresponding
parallels; secondly, that the rainfall over the Mediterranean makes up
for evaporation less than it does over the Atlantic; and thirdly,
supposing these two questions answered affirmatively: Are not these
sources of loss in the Mediterranean fully covered by the prodigious
quantity of fresh water which is poured into it by great rivers and
submarine springs? Consider that the water of the Ebro, the Rhine, the
Po, the Danube, the Don, the Dnieper, and the Nile, all flow directly or
indirectly into the Mediterranean; that the volume of fresh water which
they pour into it is so enormous that fresh water may sometimes be baled
up from the surface of the sea off the Delta of the Nile, while the land
is not yet in sight; that the water of the Black Sea is half fresh, and
that a current of three or four miles an hour constantly streams from it
Mediterraneanwards through the Bosphorus;--consider, in addition, that no
fewer than ten submarine springs of fresh water are known to burst up in
the Mediterranean, some of them so large that Admiral Smyth calls them
"subterranean rivers of amazing volume and force"; and it would seem, on
the face of the matter, that the sun must have enough to do to keep the
level of the Mediterranean down; and that, possibly, we may have to seek
for the caus