xiv DEPARTME'NT OF TEE NATAL SERVICE 



microdon, as well as the medusa Atolla and other forms; so that the area of distribu- 

 tion of these animals extends from Africa to North America, that is to say, in all the 

 water from one continental slope to the other." 



"The coast bank itself (fig. 94 [2]) offered us a totally different field for study, 

 which no doubt would have proved very interesting, but unfortunately our time was too 

 short to attempt systematic researches ; we had to steam for our coaling station, con- 

 tenting ourselves with one or two shallow stations on the way. 



" Fig. 95 (3) shows the hydrographieal conditions from our last true oceanic station 

 (69) to a station (74) just off St. Johns. It is extraordinary what a sudden change 

 there is from the warm salt oceanic water to the cold coast water. The curves of tem- 

 perature and salinity between stations 69 and 70 go down straight like a wall — the 

 well-known " cold wall " of oceanographers. 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. 



Fig. 3. Hydrographieal Section across the Great Newfoundland Bank. 



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 follow- 

 ing up the currents and animal life, both northwards and southwards. Still, even our 

 random investigations furnished interesting results. Thus we discovered that from 

 station 70 to St. Johns 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 larvae of red-fish 

 (Sehastes). At station 72 there were cod-eggs and numbers of little cod-fry, besides 

 fvdly developed eggs of haddock (Gadus ceglefinus) and haddock larvae, 3-| millimetres 

 in length and upwards, and also young fish of the boreal long rough dab (Drepanop- 

 seita). At station 73 we came across eggs of this dab (besides a number of eggs that 

 we have not yet determined), and the shallow- water form Ammodytes. At station 74 

 there were neither eggs nor young fish. 



" Similar catches are taken off the coasts of Norway and Iceland ; near and just 

 beyond the continental edge there are larvae of red-fish, and on the bank, in 30 or 40 

 fathoms of water, there are larvae and eggs of cod and haddock. It was interesting to 



