Barbara Robinson age 12, of Phoenix, Arizona, or her question;

Is there any fresh water in the Atlantic?

There is a story of an old sailing ship becalmed in the Atlantic near the equators The parched and thirsty sailors hailed a passing ship for water, Let down your buckets, sang out the reply. This seemed silly and maybe cruel ‑ for seawater is poisonous as everyone knows4 The ship was over 100 miles from land; But those buckets came up full of fresh water,

The mighty Amazon carries her flow of water very far out to sea, A current of fresh water streams through the salty Atlantic. The lucky sailors were right in the middle of it. To a lesser degree, all big rivers pour streams of fresh water through the salty sea. They gradually mix and merge with the salt water, but this may be far from land,

Other fresh water gets into the Atlantic from ice bergs, These frozen hunks are broken from northern glaciers and drift south. Glaciers are mad; of unpacked snow and rain ‑ fresh water, As the ice berg melts it adds little eddies of fresh water that soon merge with the salty sea water.