1915- No. 2. SPITSBERGEN WATERS. 99 



Investigations on the Amount of Oxygen in the Spits- 

 bergen Waters. 



Some determinations of the quantit}- of oxygen in the sea-water at 

 different depths were made at a number of stations. The results are 

 given in Table III. 



The ordinary Winkler method was used for the determinations in the 

 following manner: the glass-bottles containing about 300 cc, and pro- 

 vided with carefullv ground glass-stoppers, were filled by means of a 

 narrow rubber tube passing from the outlet of the water-bottle to the 

 bottom of the glass-bottle. The water is let in genth' and not allowed 

 to form air-bubbles, and when the bottle is full an ample quantity of water 

 is allowed to flow out over the top of the bottle, in order that all water 

 is washed out, which first ran in and came in contact with the air in the 

 bottle. Now solutions of sodium hydrate (with potassium iodide) and man- 

 ganous chloride are added with pipettes with long stems in the ordinary 

 way. Then the glass-stopper is gently pressed down into the neck of 

 the bottle, while the remaining of any air-bubble is carefully avoided. 

 .-Vlter the bottle had been inverted several times, the stopper was tied 

 down tightl}- by string round the neck of the bottle and over the stopper; 

 and after the bottle had been numbered, it was carefulh- stowed away in 

 a drawer on board. After our return to Bergen in September the final 

 titrations of the water-samples and the exact determinations of the volumes 

 of the bottles were kindl}- made by Mr. Thorbjørn Gaarder. 



The bottles with the samples were not kept in boxes or bigger 

 bottles filled with sea-water, in order to avoid the absorption of air, as 

 recommended by Bjerrum [1904] and Palitzsch [1912]. It might therefore 

 seem possible that the results are not quite trustworth}-. But the same 

 method of keeping the samples in glass-bottles with ground glass-stoppers, 

 simply secured by string tied over them, have also been used by Prof. 

 B. Helland-Hansen [1907, p. 13, Note 3] and by Mr. Gaarder for 3ears, 

 and if the stoppers closed tightly, the}- have never noticed that oxygen 

 was absorbed from the air, although the bottles were not kept in water. 



The degrees of saturation of the absorbed oxygen, given in the fifth 

 column of Table III, indicates the relation, expressed in per cent, between 

 the observed quantity of oxygen and the quantity which sea-water witli 

 the same salinity and temperature could absorb at the pressure of one 

 atmosphere, if fully saturated. If the former value be called Oj and the 



latter value O^ the percentage of saturation will be — ^^ ' The values 



are computed by means of Prof. Chas. J. J. Fox's table [1907 . 



