GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE GADIDiE. 537 



which not only reaches as far as the southern extremity of Spitzbergen, 

 but up to Novaja Semlja, with a temperature as high as + 12.5 C, — 

 54.5° P., as has been ascertgined by the imperial Eussian expedition 

 under Middendorf, in the summer of 1870. 



It may be that this current runs along the northern coast of Siberia, 

 cooling more and more by the influence of the ice and the cold water of 

 the largo Siberian rivers, and returns as cold arctic under current out of 

 Behring Strait, as cold arctic surface-current through Davis Strait and 

 the Greenland Sea. The channel between Iceland and Norway, 120 

 miles wide, serves the warm Atlantic current as entrance into the Arctic 

 Ocean. Near Spitzbergeu, even in 80"^ north latitude, the temperature 

 of the water in the open sea was found by Gaimard to be never below 

 + 0.70 0.= 33.26 F. near the surface, but nearly always -f 1© C.= 33.8 F. 

 According to the records of the Swedish expedition the water had in 

 winter a temperature of —2° C.= 28.4° F. The temperature of the sea- 

 water was found to be everywhere above 32° as far as 77° north latitude 

 and as far west as the meridian of Greenwich, and none of the reports 

 speak of ice. To the east of meridian the temperature of the water 

 at the surface is + 1, 2, 3, and over 4° 0.= 33.3, 35.6, 37.4, 39.2o F.; in 

 75° 45' north latitude, 4° east longitude from Greenwich, the surface 

 of the sea showed 4.7° C.= 40.46° F. This is distant 230 sea miles W. 

 N. W. from Bear's Island, where the monthly mean temperature in No- 

 vember, 1865, was observed — 5,40 c. = 22.28° F.and —8.50° C.= 16.7° F. 

 in December. The mean temperature of the water between Norway and 

 Spitzbergeu, 74° and 77 north latitude, was found to be + 3.94° C. 

 = 39.1° F., and in 75° to 76° north latitude even + 5. C.= 41° F. percep- 

 tibly higher than that of the air, giving a mean of — 2.92° 0.= 26.7° F. 



In the inclosed parks of the sea and in the bays the enormous accu- 

 mulation of ice, which the summer can never entirely melt, naturally 

 exercises a chilling influence. Yet numerous fishes — cod, salmon, and 

 herrings — inhabit the waters on the western coast of Spitzbergeu 77° 

 north latitude at Belsunde, surrounded by glaciers, and feeding upon the 

 vast quantities of crustaceans. 



While the temperature in the fiords and between the islands near the 

 Norwegian coast is comparatively low, 3 to 4° C.= 37.4° to 39.2° F., at 

 a distance from the coast it increases to a certain limit which for 69° 

 and 70° latitude is 7° C.= 44.6° F., being about 15 geographical miles 

 from the coast ; the limits of the 6° C.= 42.8° F. and 5° 0.= 41° F. are 

 at a distance of 10 and 5 to 8 geographical miles respectively. Almost 

 parallel with the 12° and 14° east longitude from Greenwich, the maxi- 

 mum temperature amounts to 4° and 5° C.= 39.4° and 41° F. ; but 

 while the isothermal of 5° keeps in the vicinity of the 72° latitude, the 

 vertex of the isothermal of 4° lies in the latitude of the south cape of 

 Spitzbergeu, that is, 4° or 60 (German) geographical miles further north ; 

 in other words, a warm current runs along the 14th degree of longitude 

 toward the north, while a similar arm branches off to the eastward along 

 the coast of Finmark. In its further course the warm Atlantic current 



