50 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. Kl. 
obtained by a new revision of the observations (see below, last chapter). 
But the lowest temperature of the latter is nearly one degree Centigrade 
higher than the lowest temperature of the former. 
A question of much interest for our later discussion, is: whether 
it is in any way possible, that bottom-water found in the Barents Sea, 
or in the region to the north-east, may flow into the North Polar Basin? 
According to my bathymetrical chart of the North Polar Seas? (see 
also Fig. ı, p. 24) there seems to be a channel, more than 300 metres 
deep, coming from the North Polar Basin and running southwest be- 
tween Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, but, as my bathymetrical 
chart of the Barents and Kara Seas* shows, this channel hardly com- 
municates with the deep central depression of the eastern Barents Sea, 
from which it seems to be separated by a barrier rising nearly to about 
200 metres below the surface. 
When Admiral Makaroff started on his expedition with the Yer- 
mak in 1901, he took a Pettersson-Nansen Water-Bottle with him (deli- 
vered by L. M. Ericsson i Stockholm), and some Nansen Deep-Sea 
Thermometers, from Richter in Berlin. He was also kind enough to 
take some green soda water-bottles, with patent india-rubber stoppers, 
which the writer sent him, for holding the water-samples; and he sent 
the bottles with samples back after his return? The specific 
I Professor Otto Pettersson says that, "this cold and salt bottom-layer (of the eastern 
Barents Sea) is evidently an updrift from the depths of the Polar Sea, which enters 
from north and mnorth-east both into the Kara and the Barents Sea”. (Geograph. 
Journal, London, vol. XXIV, 1904, p- 314). It is not quite clear what Prof. Petters- 
son means, for there is, as the expedition with the Fram proved, no bottom-water with 
such low temperatures in the North Polar Basin, and Pettersson cannot mean that the 
bottom-water should become colder on this way, under warmer water. But even if 
such water really existed in the depths of the North Polar Basin, it seems difficult to 
imagine what kind of force may exist to lift this unusually heavy water from the bottom 
of that deep sea up to the level of the bottom of the Barents Sea, or even to a level 
of 120 metres below the surface (at Wollebæk's Station), or even to only 70 metres at 
the Station 4 of the Fram-expedition (off Gooseland, 1893). 
Nansen, Norwegian N. Polar Exp. 1893 —1896, Scientific Results, vol. IV, No. 13, Pl. 1. 
As stated, op. cit. p. 16, it was Admiral Makaroff's valuable soundings in the sea 
between Novaya Zemlya and the Franz Josef Archipelago, and east of the latter, 
especially his tomperatures and water-samples, which pointed to the conclusion that this 
channel cømmunicates with the North Polar Basin. Dr. N. Knipowitsch, who is 
publishing Makaroff’s observations, has independantly come to the same conclusion (Reve 
Internationale de Pèche et Pisciculture, 1903, No. 2—3, published before the writer's 
memoir). Makaroff’s soundings now published in the sections given by Knipowitsch 
(Ann. Hydr. u. Marit. Meteor. 1905, Pl. 6, Figs. 6—8) make this assumption still more 
12 
w 
probable. 
Ops cit. BIN: 
The bottles had for days been washed out i hot water, before they were sent, and 
the patent stoppers prevented all possibility of evaporation. As, however, Makaroff did not 
ur 
