I02 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. Kl. 



ice and snow. In this water there may moreover have been a slow oxi- 

 dation by the animal plankton. 



It seems to be the same type of cold water, with temperatures below 

 o ^ C, salinities between 34.35 and 34.65 ° /00, quantities of oxygen between 

 7.3 and 75 cc, and saturation between 90 and 92 "/0, that forms the inter- 

 mediate cold layer in Ice Fjord (se above pp. 23 ei seq.) as well as in 

 Cross Bay. It was this water with the above mentioned amount of 

 oxygen that was observed at 75 metres at Stat. 10, at 100 and 170 metres 

 at Stat. 45, and at F40 metres at Stat. 46, in Ice Fjord. It was evidently 

 also the same type of water, with similar amounts of oxygen, that was 

 observed in the intermediate cold layers, at 50 metres, in the sea north 

 .of western Spitsbergen, at Stats. 41c and 43. 



At 50 metres at Stat. 50, in Van Mijen Bay, and at Stat. 53, outside 

 Bell Sound, where the temperatures were above o ° C, the quantities of 

 oxygen (7.99 and 7.77 cc, 98.4 and 96.3 %) were considerably greater 

 than in the cold intermediate layer just mentioned, though not as great 

 as at 50 metres at Stat. 45, in Ice Fjord, where the water evidently 

 belonged to higher levels. 



At Stat. 50 our observations gave more oxygen at 70 metres (8.08 cc.) 

 than at 50 metres (7.99 cc). If this is not the result of some obser- 

 vational error it seems somewhat difficult to account for. 



At Stat. 56, in the Atlantic Current south-west of Spitsbergen, there 

 was supersaturation of oxygen at 50 metres {102.8%), evidently due to 

 the action of phyto-plankton, but as the temperature was comparatively 

 high (5.45° C.) the actual quantity of oxygen (7.26 cc.) was smaller than 

 at the same depth at the stations farther north. 



At depths greater than 50 metres, the amount of oxygen decreases 

 as a rule fairly regularly with increasing depth, as far as our observations 

 go, and so does also as a rule the percentage of saturation. There are, 

 however, exceptions. B. g. at Stat. 43 the amount of oxygen decreases 

 very regularly with increasing depth from 100 metres downwards. The 

 decrease is at first 0.09 cc. for hundred metres (between 100 and 

 200 metres), and then, between 200 and 400 metres, 0.09 cc. for 200 metres, 

 and between 400 and 540 metres about 0.036 cc. per 100 metres. But 

 at 50 metres the cold water contained less oxygen than the warmer water 

 at 100 metres, and the percentage of saturation (89.6%) was lower than 

 at any greater depth where observations of the oxygen were taken. 



This cold water at 50 metres evidently differs in its origin from the 

 warmer waters of the underlying strata. It belongs to the cold inter- 

 mediate layer mentioned above, and is polar water that has taken part in 



