688 



Færoes. The boundary line between these Iwo currents is in- 

 fluenced by the predominant direction of the wind, and thus goes 

 somelimes nort band east, sometimes west and south, of the Færoes 

 (see Martin Knudsen 52). In a morere cent paper (»Havets Natur- 

 lære« 53, p. 29) Knudsen savs: »It seems as if the Polar Current 

 hardly ever reaches so far down as to surround the Færoes, but 

 it may happen. On the other band the Polar Current rarely re- 

 cedes far northward from the Færoes«. 



Whilst the Gulf Stream, as mentioned by Knudsen (52, p. 158), 

 bas a rather bigh temperature and a salinity above 35,25 %o, the 

 Arctic current is of a much lower temperature, which may even 

 reach the freezing point of the sea in winter and spring, and its 

 salinity is below 35,25^/oo. In summer and autumn a thin layer on 

 the surface of the Polar Current will, however, attain a temperature 

 almost equal to that of the adjacent water of the Atlantic Ocean. 

 The Ingolf expedition passed the dividing line between the two 

 currents several times, and it was then observed: »that in passing 

 from the Atlantic Ocean to the East Icelandic Polar Current the 

 salinity of the surface was reduced from more than 35,25 Voo, to 

 less than this. A slight, but still perceptible, fall of temperature 

 was likewise observed«. 



In spite of the proximity of the colder Polar Current, the in- 

 fluence of the Gulf Stream predominates, causing the temperature 

 of the sea to be very uniform all the year round, and in winter 

 especially very high. When Simmons writes (78, p. 263), that it is 

 rather low, his statement must onh' be applied to the temperature 

 of summer, which is indeed much below that of the west coast 

 of Norway in the same latitude, where an almost corresponding 

 temperature is only met with much farther north, in Nordland. 

 If we look at a map of the Northern Ocean, showing the tempera- 

 ture of the surface in summer (see for instance Hjort, Nordgaard 

 and Gran: Report on Norwegian Marine Investigations 1895 to 1897, 

 Bergen 1899), we observe that the isotherm of 12*^ C. is drawn 

 midway across the Færoes. The isotherm first bends a little 

 south east towards the Shetland Isles, and then north west to the 

 centre of Nordland. The isotherm of 11*^ C, which passes close by 

 the west and south coasts of Iceland, exlends northward round 

 the Færoes at no great distance from the Nordreoerne, and 

 ends on the west coast of Norway as far up as the centre 

 of Lofoten. The isotherm of 13" C. passes at a somewhat great 



