102 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. Kl. 
bottom-water of the Norwegian Sea is approached as the correct value 
for these samples also. 
Howsoever this may be, it is at all events quite impossible to say 
anything at all with certainty, about the salinity of the bottom-water of 
the North Polar Basin on the basis of Blessing’s water-samples; whilst 
on the other hand the determinations made with the hydrometer make 
it impossible to estimate the salinity lower than 35:08 0/00. 
The question now is: ts there much chance of Warm Water with such a 
High Salinity running into the North Polar Basin? 
The Atlantic water, carried into the North Polar Basin by the warm 
current along the west coast of Spitsbergen, cannot be heavier than the 
bottom-water of the Norwegian Sea; otherwise it would sink in the 
latter before it could cross the submarine ridge northwest of Spitsbergen. 
Its density (ør) must therefore be, at least somewhat, lower than that of 
the bottom-water, or lower than 28:10, at the time it crosses this ridge, 
and (the probability is that the density is even lower than 28'02 (see 
Pl. V, maps for 100—400 metres). The maximum salinity which the water 
can possibly have at that moment, will therefore depend on its tem- 
perature. If there be assumed for the upper limit of the density as 
much as 28:10 the highest possible salinity would be 35'25 °%/oo at 3:0° C., 
35:17,%/oo0 at 2:5° C., and 35:13 Yo at 20°C. But if the upper Timen 
the density be 28:02 the maximum salinity would be 35'14 %0 at 30° C,, 
2500100 at 2°5°°C., and 35:04 at20,C 
According to Mohn’s Sections XXIV and XXV1, off the north- 
west coast of Spitsbergen, the temperature of the warmest core of the 
current in August, 1878, was between 2° C. and 3° C., and mostly be- 
tween 2°C. and 2:59 C. (see his Sect. XXV). The salinity must conse- 
quently, have been for the greater part at least below 35'17 %0 and 
probably below 35'09 ®/o. According to Arrhenius’s Section (see 
Pl. X, Sect. IX) west of Northern Spitsbergen, in August, 1896, the 
warmest core of the current, with the highest salinities, had temperatures 
about 2°5° C.?; the salinity cannot at any rate have been above 35:17 %/00, 
and it has probably not been much above 35:09 %0. The salinity of 
35°22 0/00 (originally 35:29 0/00, see Pettersson and Ekman, op. cit.), 
i Mohn, op. cit. Pl. XII. Mohn’s Section XXIII, westwards from Ice Sound on Spits- 
bergen, has remarkably low temperatures, and there appear to have been exceptional 
conditions in this region at the time the section was taken. 
2 See also the small Section north ot Spitsbergen, Pl. X, Sect. IX a. 
