1897.] XAXSEX POLAR EXPEDITION, 1893-96. 4:61 



in the middle of winter when the ship was frozen fast in her ice 

 berth. 



These ice pressures which form the hummocks that I have spoken 

 of, and which make the ice so much thicker in some places than 

 in others, give room for cracks and open water lanes in which new 

 ice is formed. Thus one must not think of the polar sea as being 

 covered with one even layer of ice. We find floes of all thicknesses 

 from this newly formed ice on the lanes up to the big hummocks 

 which are very deep. 



There is one important feature in our discoveries about which I 

 shall say a few words, and that is the temperature of the sea. As 

 is well known, the temperature of the deep sea all over the world is 

 very low. It is not many degrees above the freezing point. In 

 the northern part of the Atlantic ocean the bottom, and in fact the 

 whole sea on the Greenland side, is filled with water two or three 

 degrees below the freezing point. The temperature is about 29.4° 

 Fahrenheit through nearly the entire depth from the surface down 

 to the bottom. Of course as far as the Gulf stream runs north the 

 surface is very much warmer. As the polar sea sends southward 

 such a cold current, filling the whole depth of the North Atlantic, 

 you would naturally expect the whole polar sea to be filled with 

 such cold water. But such is not the case. We found that from 

 100 fathoms under the surface of the polar sea down to the bottom 

 the water is warmer than we find it in the depth of the North 

 Atlantic ocean. I will give you a few of the observed tempera- 

 tures. The surface of the polar sea is covered with a layer of water 

 of comparatively low salinity, and is very cold. But when you 

 penetrate down through this layer you find that the temperature 

 begins to rise. At the surface you find the temperature — 1.5° Cen- 

 tigrade, which means 29.3° Fahrenheit. But at a depth of no 

 fathoms you suddenly come on warm water, the temperature of 

 which would be as much as 32.9° or even 33.4° Fahrenheit, 

 which you see is very much warmer than you would expect or than 

 you find in the deep sea in the North Atlantic ocean. 



At a greater depth the temperature varied somewhat, but remained 

 about the same to a depth of 220 to 270 fathoms, after which it 

 sank slowly toward the depths, though without sinking to the cold 

 temperature of surface water. Near the bottom it again rose quite 

 slowly. These conditions were fairly uniform in that part of the 

 sea over which we traveled and where investigations were made. 



