NOTE 38 (page [78])
On the Temperature and Density of the Surface-water of the Estuaries of the Rewa River in Fiji, and of the Guayaquil River in Ecuador
(a) The Rewa Estuary.—My observations were made mostly in the warm, wet seasons, from October to January, 1897-99, and generally in the vicinity of the Roman Catholic Mission. The density varied usually between 1·000 and 1·010, the water being quite fresh after heavy rains inland. Though the density was usually greatest at high water, this was by no means always the case. The temperature of the water in dry weather varied from 79° to 84° F. With the river in flood after heavy rains it fell to 75° and 76°. As a rule, the fresher the water the lower the temperature, but this was not invariable. There was evidence of super-heating in the estuary, the water there having sometimes a temperature of 82° or 83°, when the water higher up the river as far as Viria was two or three degrees cooler, the sea-temperature being 79° to 80°. The average temperature of the water of the estuary during the season would be 80 to 81°.
(b) The Estuary of the Rio Guayas, also known, as the Guayaquil River.—My observations were made in the last week of February and in the first half of March, 1904. Whilst the sea-temperature a few miles off the Ecuador coast varied from 76° to 80° F., the water of the estuary from the mouth up to Guayaquil ranged from 79° to 86°, whilst rather higher up the river the temperature was about 79° or 80°. The super-heating of the estuary is thus directly indicated. It was well marked in the lower part of the estuary during one of my ascents of the river.
Surface-temperatures of estuary of the Guayaquil River, March 13, 1904, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; tide running up.
| Sea-temperature 5-10 miles off the mouth | 79·7 |
| Estuary-temperature at the mouth, off Puna | 82·7 |
| Estuary-temperature 3 miles above Puna | 84·4 |
| Estuary-temperature 15 miles above Puna | 86·5 |
| Estuary-temperature 25 miles above Puna | 82·5 |
| Estuary-temperature off Guayaquil | 81·8 |
The water of the estuary was, as a rule, cooler with the ebbing tide.
The density of the estuary-water at the mouth opposite Puna during the two days the ship was in quarantine ranged from 1·004 to 1·016, being generally about 1·010, and salter with the up-going tide. Off Guayaquil the water during the ebbing tide was quite fresh and, from an Ecuadorian standpoint only, potable, whilst at high water it may be a little brackish. The sea-water has much freer access to the channels in the mangrove-district at the back of the city of Guayaquil, where at high water I found the density to be 1·014.
Off Puna, on Feb. 25, I noticed that the surface-current which was running down the stream was from one to two fathoms deep, whilst below it was a strong current running up the river which carried my thermometer up against the surface-current.
NOTE 39 (page [82])
On the Pacific Species of Strongylodon
Hillebrand in his Hawaiian Flora, following Seemann, regards S. lucidum, Seem., and S. ruber, Vogel, as one species found in Fiji, Hawaii, and Tahiti, and by the former placed also in Ceylon. Hillebrand and Seemann are followed by Drake del Castillo as regards the Tahitian species. Taubert, in his monograph on the Leguminosæ (Engler’s Pflanz. Fam., Teil 3, Abth. 3, 1894), takes the same view of the Polynesian species and of its wide distribution. However, in the Genera Plantarum and in the Index Kewensis, the Asiatic and Polynesian species have been always kept apart. The two species of the genus mentioned in the first work are increased to five in the Index Kewensis, viz., one in Fiji (S. lucidum), one in Hawaii (S. ruber), two in Madagascar, and one in the Philippines.