The fishes of the Danmark Expedition. 637 



has also the advantage that it can be worked by one man and for 

 this reason I often used it in conjunction with a landing net or 

 hand-dredge. 



With regard to the natural conditions in the freshwater lakes 

 of North-East Greenland and the animal life contained in them, 

 reference may be made to my earlier papers 



The general features of the hydrographical conditions in the 

 waters of North-East Greenland may be just briefly discussed, on 

 the basis of Captains Trolle's observations and my own, as well as 

 on the results of other expeditions. As will be seen from the 

 accompanying Chart (fig. 2), the 500 m curve off North-East Green- 

 land runs parallel to the main direction of the coast at a distance 

 of 5 — 10 degrees of longitude from it. On the other hand, the 400 

 and 300 m curves are much more irregular, and this applies espe- 

 cially to the 200 m curve. The 100 m curve naturally follows the 

 line of the coast even more than the preceding. On the Belgica 

 Bank (ca. 78° N. L., ca. 15° W. L.) we meet with shallow water 

 (about 100 m) whilst round about the depths are over 500 m. In 

 the fjords round about Danmarks Havn (see fig. 4) only some iso- 

 lated spot have depths over 200 m; a depth of 100 — 200 m is only 

 found for a short distance into "Øresund", whereas it extends through 

 the whole of the "Lille Bælt" and "Storebælt" and has a wide 

 distribution both in Stormbugt and in the more westerly Dovebugt. 

 In depths of less than 100 m we find submarine ridges here and 

 there (e. g. from Baadskær to Koldewey Island). 



A large number of soundings were made in Danmarks Havn 

 (by two members of the Expedition, Bistrup and Сн. Poulsen) and 

 from these we can form a much more exact picture of the depths, 

 and the importance of knowing this locality in more detail is so 

 much the greater as the fish taken come more especially from here. 

 Owing to its position (both on a fjord and in the neighbourhood of 

 the sea outside), the nature of its bottom-soil (soft and hard) and 

 the depth (down to ca. 60 m), this locality may also be taken as 

 type for the shallow-water areas of those regions. From the ad- 

 joining Chart (fig. 5) it will be seen, that the 5 m curve follows very 

 closely the line of the coast; this is also the case, though to less 

 extent, with the 10 m curve, but the 20 m curve is extremely irre- 

 gular, as it forms the boundary between the shallow water (below 

 20 m), which fills the greater part of the basin, and the deeper 

 layers (over 20 m) which in a broad tongue push from the fjord 

 into the harbour, where the tongue branches irregularly in the 



1 "Fresh-water life in North-East Greenland" by Frits Johansen. Danmark-Eks- 

 peditionen til Grønlands Nordøstkyst 1906—08. Bd. V. N. 6. Kbhvn. 1911. 



