no DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN 



temperature and salinity between Stations 69 and 70 go down 

 straight like a wall — the well-known "cold wall" of oceano- 

 graphers. Over the bank there is a surface layer, about 40 

 metres in depth, with a temperature of over 6° C, similar to 

 what we get in the boreal portion of the Norwegian Sea along 

 the coast of Norway. Below that, however, the temperatures 

 are under 2° C, and even as low as — 1.5° C, that is to say, the 

 water may be as cold as what Nansen found near the North 

 Pole. Probably at no other part of the globe are there such 

 peculiar temperature conditions — conditions comparable with 

 those in the Arctic regions, though the latitude is the same as 

 that of Paris. It would have been an agreeable task to trace 

 these conditions by following up the currents and animal life 



Fig. 95. — Hydrographical Section 'across jthe^Great Newfoundland Bank. 



both northwards and southwards. Still even our random in- 

 vestigations furnished interesting results. Thus we discovered 

 that from Station 70 to St. John's there was the same northerly 

 plankton already mentioned, and an examination of the young 

 fish showed that they accorded with what had previously been 

 found by Norwegian naturalists off the coast of Norway, and 

 by the Danes south of Iceland. 



On the outer side of the coast bank, at Station 71, we met 

 with larvse of red-fish {Sebastes). At Station 72 there were cod- 

 eggs and numbers of little cod-fry, besides fully developed eggs of 

 haddock (Gadus csglefinus) and haddock larvai, 3^ millimetres 

 in length and upwards, and also young fish of the boreal long 

 rough dab [Drepauopsettd). At Station ']2i we came across 

 eggs of this dab (besides a number of eggs that we have not 

 yet determined), and the shallow-water form Animodytes. At 

 Station 74 there were neither eggs nor young fish. 



