76 FRIDTJOF NANSEN, M.-N. Kl. 
the Greenland coast, with velocities, which are greaterst near the sur- 
face, and decreasing downwards. By the deflection caused by the Earth’s 
rotation, both the cold and the warm water-layers of the current, being 
lighter than the underlying bottom-water, which has a slower motion, 
are pressed against the coast, and are there depressed, on to the right 
hand side of the current, as is always the case, where a current moves 
along a coast on its right hand side (c/. for instance, the Gulf Stream 
along the Norwegian coast and along that of Spitsbergen). 
Prof. Pettersson has propounded the theory, that this warm 
intermediate water should come directly from the east or southeast, by 
“an under-current of Atlantic water, which at about 72° N. Lat, branches 
off from the main body of such water in the Norwegian Sea, and north 
of Jan Mayen flows in a north-westerly direction towards the coast of 
Greenland”, and as evidence of the existence of this current he mentions 
the temperature series of Östergren taken at Kolthoff’s Station II 
(Å II). What has been said above makes this theory appear highly 
improbable. Section VII (Pl. IX) also further demonstrates its impro- 
bability. The warm water underlying the cold water at Stations N IX 
and N VII, cannot move northwards, for if so, it would necessarily 
have quite a different position”. It cannot, therefore, come from the 
south or south-east. It seems then to be much more probable that it 
may come from the region of the warm intermediate water-layer at 
Ostergren’s northern Station (Æ I, see Sect. IX, and the maps for 100— — 
400 metres, Pl. V). At any rate, the warm water underlying the East 
Greenland Polar Current must come from the Atlantic Current (Gulf 
Stream) running north, along the eastern margin of the deep basin of 
the Northern Norvegian Sea; and somewhere to the north of Ryder's, 
Nathorst’s, Amdrup’s, and Amundsens Stations it must come from the 
east by a partially cyclonic movement. It seems also possible that some 
part of this warmer water may come along with the overlying cold 
current from the North Polar Basin. At Station 23 (July 1895) 
of the Fram-Expedition, in 84° 32° N. Lat, 73° 55° E. Long 
1 Otto Pettersson, On the Influence at Ice-Melting upon Oceanic Circulation, Geo- 
graphical Journal, vol. XXIV, London, 1904, p. 309. 
It might be objected that the observations at Amdrup’s Station (4p. III) are not from 
the same year as those of Åkerblom (at Nathorst's Stations N VII, NIX). But Ryder's 
Stations (À XII, R XII, and R XIV) give exactly the same picture, which indicates 
that this is a characteristic feature of the current. 
wo 
