180 BIOLOGY OF THE SEAS OF THE U.S.S.R. 



The fact that the productive capacities of the White Sea are several times 

 lower than those of the Barents Sea is caused by its shorter period of vege- 

 tation and by a series of other physico-geographical factors and explains, 

 in its turn, the relatively small commercial productivity of the Sea. 



The only commercial fish present in quantity in the open sea are herring 

 and pollack ; in the Gorlo area, the Greenland seal is abundant. 



II. HISTORY OF EXPLORATION 



The first period 



Interest in the study of the fauna of the White Sea arose at first in connection 

 with the journey of K. Baer to Novaya Zemlya in 1837. Baer, who also visited 

 the White Sea, drew attention to the richness of its fauna, especially in the 

 Gulf of Kandalaksha. In 1864 the Moscow zoologist, A. Kroneberg, went to 

 the White Sea and brought back a rich collection of marine animals. After 

 that the initiative in the study of White Sea fauna passed to the Petersburg 

 Society of Naturalists, which sent to the White Sea the zoologists F. Jarzhin- 

 sky and L. Iversen in 1869, and N. Wagner, C. Mereschkowsky and S. Her- 

 zenstein in 1876, 1877 and 1880. In 1870 a large-scale expedition to the White 

 Sea and the Barents Sea was likewise carried out from Moscow by V. Uljanin. 

 We are indebted to all these persons for the earliest information about the 

 fauna of the White Sea. 



The second period 



A closer investigation of the fauna of the White Sea began, however, in 1881, 

 when the above Society opened a biological station on Great Solovetsky 

 Island, which existed there for 18 years and was transferred in 1899 to Aleks- 

 androvsk on the Murman Peninsula. Over a series of years the outstand- 

 ing Russian zoologists V. M. Schimkevitch, N. M. Knipovitch, A. Birula, 

 K. Saint-Hilaire and many others worked at the Solovetsky biological station. 

 During the first 20 years of this century the work of K. Saint-Hilaire in the 

 Kovda Guba region, and of N. Livanov in the Solovetsky Islands, was parti- 

 cularly notable. 



The third period 



From 1920 onwards there began a period of more intensive study of the White 

 Sea by workers from the Hydrological Institute, the Northern Scientific and 

 Fishery Expedition, and the State Oceanographic Institute. At the same time 

 K. Derjugin also began work on the White Sea ; he published a voluminous 

 monograph devoted to it in 1928. In addition, several permanent establish- 

 ments arose on the shores of the White Sea. The first of these, after the trans- 

 fer of the Solovetsky station to the Murman Peninsula, was the summer bio- 

 logical laboratory founded by Saint-Hilaire at Kovda in 1908. In 1931 the 

 Hydrological Institute set up its White Sea station at Piryu Guba (Umba) 

 and the State Oceanographic Institute opened its branches at Archangel 

 and Kandalaksha. Finally, in 1939, the White Sea Biological Station of 

 Moscow University started functioning on the southern shore of the Gulf of 



