HYDROGRAPHIC I NYKSTK NATIONS 55 



Arctic, and the results so far obtained are briefly referred to 

 in the various sections of the book which follow. A brief 

 digression is necessary here in order to explain the constitution 

 and objects of the International Fishery Council, as it is 

 frequently called. 



In July, 1899, the Swedish Government invited the govern- 

 ments of the countries interested in the fisheries of the North 

 Sea to join in a scheme for the joint investigation of that and 

 neighbouring seas. Eventually nine countries engaged in a 

 scheme of research e.g., Britain, Belgium, Denmark, 

 Germany, Finland, Holland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. 

 Each country had its own -staff of scientists, its own exploring 

 vessels and laboratories, and in addition there was a central 

 laboratory set up at Christiania and a central office at Copen- 

 hagen, in order that the researches might be properly co- 

 ordinated. This work went on until the outbreak of the war in 

 1914, when the work at sea came to an end, and in most of the 

 belligerent countries even the work at the shore laboratories 

 was largely curtailed, if not entirely suspended. Each country 

 had allocated to it a certain area of sea for detailed investiga- 

 tion ; the appended chart (Fig. 7) shows these areas. 



The part of the International Fishery investigations with 

 which we are most concerned is the hydrographic work, which 

 deals with physical investigations on the constitution and 

 movements of the water in the seas of Northern Europe. The 

 area investigated includes not only the continental shelf on 

 which the British Isles stand, but also the deep-water areas 

 separated by the Wyville-Thomson ridge, which joins the 

 Faroes to the British submarine plateau. This ridge extends 

 on past the Faroes to Iceland and Greenland, and it separates 

 two deep-water basins, one in the Arctic, the other in the 

 Atlantic, from one another. Not only is the continental shelf 

 an important fishing-ground, but the ridge and its continua- 

 tions, or at any rate the banks on them, are potential fishing- 

 grounds. Further information was therefore desired of the 

 physical conditions, not only on the ridge itself, but of the 



