272 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



ters now stood there was nothing else for us to do than to move on, and 

 meanwhile see to getting a new trawl ready as soon as possible. As ice 

 was now seen in the horizon in various directions, we did not deem it 

 advisable to press further forward toward the west, and so we changed 

 our course to the northeast, trying as far as practicable to follow the 

 edge of the ice. The further north we came the more ice we saw, and at 

 last we were surrounded on all sides, wherever we turned our eyes, with 

 large and small tioes of ice of the usual bizarre forms, but still with suffi- 

 cient si)ace between them to allow the ship to be maneuvered further in 

 the above-mentioned direction, provided proper care was taken. At six 

 o'clock in the evening we at last came out of the belt of drift-ice, and 

 had a clear and open sea before us. The weather was brilliant during 

 the whole time, the sun shone bright, and the sea between the ice-floes 

 was as smooth as in a harbor. 



The following morning we had already advanced up to the next pas- 

 sage, and when we had established a depth here of 1,640 fathoms, our 

 course was directed to the east again toward Spitzbergen. In the eve- 

 ning we sounded again, finding 1,333 fathoms, and an accurate series of 

 observations of temperature was also taken by which it became evident 

 that we had already gotten out of the Polar curreut, 32^ F. not being 

 found before we reached a depth of 400 fiithoms. 



Meanwhile we had made a new trawl, with a new rope and other be- 

 longings, and although the depth was considerably less than at the last 

 station, it still was so great that a successful haul with this apparatus 

 would be of great interest in a biological respect. Hopeful, we then let 

 the trawl sink down, trusting that the new rope would stand the test 

 this time. But when we came to haul the trawl in, the same unusual 

 strain appeared on the accumulator as the previous time ; its strings 

 were stretched to thrice their length, although the trawl was raised from 

 the bottom. Ou our former expeditions, further south, we had several 

 times used the dredge at a similar depth, without anything like this 

 hapj)ening, and hence we were in the greatest suspense to get at a sat- 

 isfactory explanation of this yet inexi)licable phenomenon. After much 

 work and considerable anxiety in regard to our apparatus the trawl 

 finally came up, and with it came the key to the problem. The net con- 

 tained not only, as we had been wont to find, theretofore, the usual bi- 

 loculina-clay, but, together with this, large, round stones, of which one 

 was estimated to weigh about 300 pounds. The beam holding the run- 

 ners apart from each other was broken in two by the great weight, and 

 it must be regarded as a wonder that the net, too, was not torn to pieces. 

 The whole sea-bed here seenls to be literally covered with small and 

 great stones lying loose in the mud, and they must, without any doubt, 

 come from the icebergs that during the summer season constantly break 

 loose from the glaciers on Spitzbergen and then melt here untler the 

 influence of the warm Atlantic current and unload the stones which by 

 the action of the glacier are brought upon the ice. The further exam- 



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