94 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. Kl. 
this region. During the cruise with the “Michael Sars”, in 1900, a 
series of temperatures (Stat. 13, Aug. 3, 1900) was taken to the north 
of this Station, in 66° 42’ N. Lat., 26° 40° W. Long., and a temperature 
of 0'14° C. at the bottom in 550 metres found. 
North of Iceland the Ingolf expedition found a bottom-temperature 
of —0'8 C. at Stat. 125 in 66° 8’ N. Lat., 16° 2’ W. Long.; depth 1374 
metres 1, 
Near the Greenland coast, in Denmark Strait, Axel Hamberg 
observed in 1883 nothing but warm water under the Polar Current, and 
the temperature was about 3° C. near the bottom 2. It is thus seen that 
at no place hitherto examined, does bottom-water with a temperature 
below — 08" C. exists on or near the Iceland-Greenland Ridge, while 
on the Iceland-Færoe-Scotland Ridge the bottom-temperatures are even 
much higher. There is therefore hardly any possibility that bottom- 
water with a temperature below —o'8° C., or perhaps even o° C., can 
get out of the Norwegian Sea and southwards. It is necessary to assume 
that the bottom-water circulates in the deep basin of this sea, until it 
shall have become warmed up towards zero chiefly by intermixture 
with the overlying warmer water; it may then be carried out, chiefly 
across the ridge in the Denmark Strait, under the polar current. But 
no great quantity can be carried out of the basin, and it is at once obvious 
that the renewal of the Bottom-Water of the Norwegian Sea in this way 
must be an extremely slow process. The quantity of cold water formed 
at the surface and sinking to the bottom during the winter, in Amund- 
sen’s region, between Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen, may therefore be 
expected to be amply sufficient to feed this circulation. 
! During the cruises of the ,Fylla”, of the Danish Navy, in the summers of 1877 and 
and 1878, several series of deep-sea temperatures were taken in the sea west and 
north-west of Iceland. (See Hoffmeyer, Geografisk Tidsskrift, Copenhagen, vol. II, 
1878, p. 97, and Bardenfleth, :bid., vol. III, 1879. p. 46). The thermometers used 
have, however, evidently given too low temperatures. In 66° 25‘ N. Lat. and 25° 50! 
W. Long. a bottom-temperature of -—1'1° C. was observed at 650 metres (1878), and 
in 67° 40° N. Lat., 22° 23° W. Long., the bottom-temperature at 660 metres was deter- 
mined as —1.6° C. which is an improbable value. 
? Axel Hamberg, Bihang till K. Svenska Vet. Akad. Handlingar, vol. IX, No. 16 
Shockholm, 1884, p. 13. 
| 
