DAVIS STRAIT AND LABRADOR SEA 9 



including both a consideration of the Michael Sars section across 

 Davis Strait and one taken northeast of Newfoundland by the Scotia 

 in 1913. Some of Iselin's findings are (a) the Labrador Current is 

 narroAver than popularly supposed and is confined mostly to the 

 continental edge; {h) an abrupt change from water of —1.5° C. and 

 33.5%o to 4° C. and 34.5%o occurred at the outer edge of the 

 Labrador Current; {c) the margin of the Labrador Sea, where 

 entered, had little indicated movement; {d) the slope current, fairly 

 constant in character and volume, averaged 10 miles per day; (e) 

 the Labrador Current, beneath the surface and throughout its length, 

 remains surprisingly constant in temperature. 



The supposed position and general characteristics of the Labrador 

 Current and several other tentative opinions of Iselin, based on the 

 two sections, have been borne out in several instances by our more 

 detailed observations. 



The same year of the Marion expedition, 1928, the Danish Gov- 

 ernment steam barkentine Godthaab carried out an oceanographic 

 survey of Baffin Bay as well as the Labrador Sea. Commander 

 Eigil Riis-Carstensen (1931) of the Royal Danish Navy, leader of 

 the expedition, has w^ritten the narrative account, and the Conseil 

 Permanent International (1929) carried the table data of stations, 

 temperatures, and salinities. The hydrographical report of this 

 expedition, the only thorough and systematic study of Baffin Bay, 

 has not yet been published. The Godthaab and Marion expeditions 

 prior to departure, and while cruising in the northwestern North 

 Atlantic, were frequently in communication with each other regard- 

 ing cooperation of their programs. The same good spirit of co- 

 operation has been extended by the commander of the Godthaab 

 expedition, for the purposes of interpreting our own results and 

 questions which depend on factors in adjoining areas and he has 

 given generous permission to use the station data contained in 

 Bulletin Hydrographique (1929). 



The summer of 1928 witnessed the entrance of still another 

 oceanographic expedition, that of the nonmagnetic vessel Carnegie 

 of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution of Washington, D. C. This expedition took five stations en 

 route across the northwestern North Atlantic. Like the GodthaaVs 

 \h<6 report of this survey has not yet been published, but reference to 

 the station table data has been made through the permission of the 

 director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Washington, 

 D. C. The only station comparable with those of the Marlon^ Gar- 

 negieh station no. 12, is in good agreement with those nearby of the 

 Mai^hon. 



During the summers of 1928 to 1930, inclusive, and in February, 

 March, and the summer of 1933, the German research vessel Meteor 

 carried out oceanographic work in the Denmark Sea as far as 500 

 miles southeast of Cape Farewell. Bohnecke (1930, 1931), Defant 

 (1931, 1933), and Schulz (1934), have given preliminary accounts 

 of surface water conditions and other hydrographical features. No 

 report on the results of the February-March 1933 investigations has 

 yet appeared. Bohnecke (1931) has also employed the T-S corre- 

 lation to interpret other parts of the data. Some of the important 

 findings have been {a) the Reykjanes Ridge, as bounded by the 2,000 



