48 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. Kl. 
Between May 26 and 31 (see Table I), in about 73°N. Lat. and between 
38° and 40° E. Long., Amundsen found the sea-surface cooled to about 
its freezing point, whilst the surface-salinities were about 34'7 or 34'8 0/60. 
The surface-water had consequently a density im situ of between 27:96 
and 28'05, and it seems therefore that a vertical circulation reaching down 
to the deep cold layers might easily be possible in this region. 
From the places where the cold winter water is chiefly formed, it 
spreads as heavy underlying water along the deepest central part of the 
depression, and forms its bottom-layers. Only where the water is in 
rapid horizontal movement along the slopes, is the level of the under- 
lying cold heavy water lowered by the pressure produced by this 
moving water, which is deflected, by the Earth’s rotation, against the 
slopes and against the heavy water on the banks. The cold underlying- 
water will therefore rise highest along the central portion of the depression. 
This cold heavy bottom-water will, however, probably also creep 
westwards along the bottom of the deepest channels communicating with 
the depression; and being deflected by the Earth's rotation, it will chiefly 
move westwards along the northern slope of these Channels (c/. maps 
Pl. III). There is therefore found the same kind of cold bottom-water 
forming a layer 140 metres thick near the bottom (between 150 and 
290 metres), at Amundsen’s Stat. 12, on the northern side of the central 
channel (in 73° 50° N. Lat., 37° 50 E. Long.)?. His, Stat. 11 isTonsthe 
southern side of the same channel and here there is also cold bottom- 
water in 275 and 300 metres, but it is not possible to say how thick 
the layer may have been. 
About 130 kilometres (70 naut. miles) further west, Knipowitsch has 
a section across the same channel, five or six wecks later in the same 
summer”. Here there is the same cold water, as at Amundsen’s Stat. 12, 
with temperatures below —1° C. and salinity below 3490 °/,,, forming 
a thin layer along the bottom on the northern slope of the channel, at 
Stats. 503, 504, and 505 (between 74° 15’ and 74° 45‘ N. Lat. and along 
the -meridian- of 33.30" E. Long,''see maps “is. Ill and VEE 
thickest at the most northern Station, as might be expected owing to 
the deflecting force of the Earth’s rotation. In sections further west, 
near the eastern end of the deep channel south of Bear Island, this cold 
! The observations at the Russian Stat. 21, on Aug. 19, 1904, which is very near 
Amundsen's Stat. 12 (see Figs. I and 3, pp. 24, 27), seem to prove that the conditions 
may differ much in this region. As is seen in the Section Fig. 3, there is hardly 
any cold bottom-water at Stat. 21, and temperatures as well as salinities are very 
different from those of Amundsen's Stat. 12. 
2 Ann. Hydr. etc. 1905, Pl. 6, Fig. 2. 
