6 MARION EXPEDITI0:N^ to DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 



the international ice patrol.- This service was established as a 

 result of the great number of sea disasters which occurred around 

 Newfoundland and culminated in the tragic loss of 1,500 lives and 

 the steamer Titanic in 1912. Besides the practical work of locat- 

 ing the ice and warning ships of its presence, the ice patrol in 

 its 16 years of service, especially since 1921, has assembled a 

 large amount of ice and oceanographical data. The area so fre- 

 quently surveyed includes the Grand Bank from the forty-eighth 

 parallel soutliAvard to 39° latitude and east and west between merid- 

 ians 45 and 55. As a result the behavior of the ice south of New- 

 foundland can now be treated in great detail.^ 



Using the available data several researches have been published 

 on the subject of Arctic ice and its drift into the North Atlantic 

 Ocean. Thus Rodman (1890) published a report on the ice and its 

 movement to the North Atlantic. Howard (1920) prepared an 

 article for the Monthly Pilot Chart issued by the British Meteoro- 

 logical Office, and Hennessey (1929) has continued the work in the 

 Marine Observer. Mecking (190G-7), with the assistance of the 

 Deutsche Seewarte, made a special research of ice conditions in Davis 

 Strait, and with especial reference to the effect of meteorological 

 conditions on distribution of the ice in the Atlantic. Bowxlitch 

 (1925) and the Newfoundland and Davis Strait and the Arctic 

 Pilots (U. S. Hydrographic Office, 188-1, 1909, 1921), all contain 

 chapters devoted to drift ice and icebergs for the information of sea- 

 men. Smith (192Ta) for several years published a paper devoted 

 to ice on the back of the Monthly Pilot Chart, United States 

 H3^drographic Office. 



All of the foregoing accounts have been seriously handicapped by 

 the lack of a sufficient knowledge of the cold currents north of New- 

 foundland and of the consequent behavior of the ice there. 



"MARION" EXPEDITION 



The need for ice and oceanographic observations, from Newfound- 

 land northward to Baffin Bay. had been felt by many scientists for a 

 number of years. Accordingly, in June, 1928, the United States 

 Coast Guard, in charge of the ice patrol, assigned the patrol boat 

 Marlon for a northern expedition. The Marion sailed from Sydney, 

 Cape Breton, on July 16. (See narrative account in Part 1 of 

 this bulletin.) A total of eight weeks was devoted to a detailed 

 ice and ocean-current survey of the waters from the latitude of 

 St. Johns. Newfoundland, to the mouth of Baffin Bay, and ex- 

 tending all the w^ay east and west betAveen North America and 

 Greenland. The success or failure of any mission to the waters of 

 Davis Strait and Baffin Bay depends upon the ice conditions pre- 

 vailing in these waters during the brief warm period of the year, and 

 the Marion expedition, the summer of 1928, w^as very much favored 



- The British auxiliary bark Scotia inaugurated tlie first systematic plan of scientific 

 exploration of the ice regions off Newfoundland in the spring of 1913; Mathews (1914) 

 has written a very illuminating account of the oceanography of the Grand Bank. 



3 I'revious to 1928 the observations of the ice patrol had been confined to the area south 

 of Newfoundland with one exception. In July, 1914, the Coast Guard cutter Seneca 

 sailed from St. Johns, Newfoundland, bound for the sea which separates Labrador from 

 Greenland. The purpose was " to obsei-ve the origin of the ice which annually appears on 

 the banks of Newfoundland, and to investigate the agencies by which it is transported 

 from the north." (Johnston, 1915, p. 31.) Unfortunately 1914 was a bad ice year, and 

 after proceeding about liOO miles nortli of St. Johns, the Seneca came into ice so heavy 

 and bergs so numerous tliat it was danserous to attempt further progress. 



