w, 



heu occupied iu examining the saltness and the currents of the seas 

 rouud the coast of Scandinavia, I remarked certain circumstances, which 

 appeared to offer a new and clear exphmation of the origin of some of 

 the ocean-currents, of which previous exphmatious had been attempted, 

 grounded on assumed differences iu the sea-water's specific gravity '). 

 This led me to a more extensive examination of the causes, which in 

 general give rise to streams in the sea, and I have published an essay 

 on tlie subject in the «Ofversigt af Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens För- 

 handlingar för Sept. 1875» in connexion with a complete account of the 

 streams I had observed at the mouths of the rivers, which fall into the 

 sea at Göteborg and Stockholm. My present object is to present the 

 results of that work in a more systematic form, and, at the same time, 

 to enter somewhat more fully into certain points, which in that work 

 have been only incidentally touched upon. 



Even when we leave out of consideration the possibility of oceanic 

 streams being produced by extratelluric attraction, there are, it is known, 

 many causes, which give rise to motion in the ocean's water: gain or 

 loss of heat, rain, evaporation, freezing, variation of atmospheric pressure, 

 winds etc. , are causes of this kind, all arising directly or indirectl}' from 

 unequal distribution of the solar heat. All the learned men, who have 

 made the problem of the origin of the oceanic currents a subject of 

 studj-, have paid more or less attention to all these causes, though often 

 in a one-sided manner, so that an almost exclusive importance has been 

 attributed sometimes to one and sometimes to another. Since however 

 the fact is, that almost every one of these causes has a somewhat im- 

 portant influence on the movement of the water in some special district 



') I published a short essay ou this subject in the «Archive des sciences de la 



Bibliothèque Universelle, Sept. 1875, entitled: Notice sur les mouvements de l'eau de 

 mer dans le voisinage de l'embouchure des fleuves. 



Nova Acta Reg. Soc. Sc Ups. Ser. III. 1 



