192 A TEXTBOOK OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



known as the North Cape Current, and it runs across along 

 the Murman coast, ultimately sinking, owing to its higher 

 salinity, below the colder Arctic waters. In the bottom waters 

 of Barents Sea one finds large shoals of edible fish of com- 

 mercial value e.g., the plaice. These grounds are the 

 northernmost frequented by British trawlers, which have 

 fished here since 1905.* It has been identified as a bottom 

 layer by Nansen on the Fram, to the south of Nova Zembla. 

 The glass globes used by the Norwegian fishermen on their 

 drift-nets are frequently detached from their nets in storms 

 and drift across in the North Cape Current to the Murman 

 coast as far as the Petschora estuary. Another branch of the 

 current is found on the bottom between Nova Zembla and 

 Franz Joseph Land, and still another between Franz Joseph 

 Land and Spitsbergen. 



A branch of a cold Polar current runs south-west to Bear 

 Island, which is consequently frequently blocked with ice, 

 though land in much higher latitudes e.g., Spitsbergen- 

 may at the same time be ice-free. This Bear Island Current 

 originates in Barents Sea, but has not much strength and does 

 not overlap the island much. 



Farther east in Kara Sea and beyond the Liakov or New 

 Siberian Islands there is a general westerly drift, except, 

 perhaps, in the immediate neighbourhood of the coasts, where 

 it is easterly at first. Owing to land water and precipitation, 

 the sea-level in the Arctic is probably higher than in the 

 Atlantic, and consequently water flows out somewhere from 

 the former to the latter. The main exit is the East Greenland 

 Current. On this general westerly drift across the Pole Nansen 

 based his hopes of reaching the Pole on the Fram. Prior to 

 this, the Jeanette was wrecked in June, 1881, in 77-6 N. Lat. 

 near Henrietta Island (North Siberia), and its relics found in 

 1884 near Julianshaab, in South- Western Greenland. 



Confirmation of this drift is afforded by the experiments 



* See J. T. Jenkins, "The Sea Fisheries," 1920, p. 32. London : 

 Constable, 



