200 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
A branch of the main current will thus — in my opinion — go 
close along the coast of Greenland, inside the Belgica Shoal, and 
unite with the main current somewhere in the vicinity of Shannon 
Island; this current, while setting the ice continually to the south, will 
make the coastwater by keeping the ice outside it in continuous motion. 
The coastwater has a uniform breadth along shores in a direction 
from north to south, but increases considerably in extent just south of 
islands or promontories with coasts trending E—W, in which latter places 
the water areas are almost permanent in size. 
These open areas of water are found south of Ile de France (“Belgica” 
1905, “Danmark” 1906, 1908, Мтккетзем 1909, 1910, 1911) probably 
south of Koldewey Island (“Belgica” 1905, MIKKELSEN 1909, 1910, 
1911, 1912) and south of Shannon Island. 
This area of open water (south of Shannon Island) was noticed 
during the winter of 1870 by the German Expedition”, by the members 
of the Danmark-Expedition, when in 1906 and 1908 they visited Bass 
Rock and Shannon Island’, and finally by ourselves in the years 1909, 
1910, 4917, 1912: 
Open water during the winter seems, in this locality, an established 
fact, and will most likely be formed every year. The principal reason 
for its existence is the main polar current, which follows the coast from 
promontory to promontory and deflects a little towards the west ın the 
deeper bays. The current keeps the pack-ice in continuous motion 
and prevents it from freezing on to the land-ice. 
But that does not quite explain, why the land-ice should form a 
bay, several miles deep, just south of Shannon Island, a bay, which is 
usually quite free of drifting ice, and some other reason must be found 
to explain its annual and permanent existence. We noticed — whenever 
this area of open water was covered with thin ice — that when broken 
up by the wind it drifted away from the solid land-ice, quite perpendi- 
cular to its main direction and leaving between it a lane of open water. 
Likewise, when a seal or a bird was shot near the edge of the solid 
land-ice, it invariably drifted away to sea. 
This set away from the land-ice can only be caused by a current, 
as the set was often seen to be right against the wind, and while this 
off-shore current can easily be explained during summer-time by the 
outflow of melting water from the mainland of Greenland, this can not 
be the case during the winter, when there is no outflow from the ice-cap, 
and this drift, which exists winter as well as summer, must be accounted 
for by some permanent cause throughout the year. 
It seems the most likely assumption that a part of the main current 
branches off south of Koldewey Island, bends westward and flows down 
1 Koldewey. Die zweite deutsche Nordpolarfahrt. Vol. II, pag. 461, 546, etc. 
2 Medd. om Grønland. Vol. XLI, pag. 496. Hydrographical Observations 
of the Danmark-Expedition. 
