vDince August 1902. a rich material has been collected during several seasonal cruises 

 in the Fseroe-Shetland Channel which forms part of the Scottish region in the inter- 

 national investigations of the sea. This material has been worked up and has now been 

 published in two larger papers: "Hydrographical Investigations of the Fœroe-Shetland 

 Channel and the Northern Part of the North Sea during 1902" by the present author, 

 and "Scottish Hydrographie Research during 1903" by A.J. Robertson. As the results 

 of these investigations are also of importance for the other North European seas, a 

 short summary of the contents of the papers mentioned will be given in the follow- 

 ing pages. 



The observations in the Channel have been made along two almost parallel lines: 

 a northern from a point N. W. of Shetland to the Fœroes, and a southern, which runs 

 from a point S. of the Fjeroes to Fair Island between the Orkneys and Shetlands. 

 Schematic sections along the more southerly of these two lines are shown in the Figures 

 I — 4 (p. 15) for four different periods. Only one complete series of observations in the 

 Channel is available for the winter half-year, viz. for December 1902, as heavy storms 

 have rendered work impossible in the other months of the seasonal cruises. 



The peculiarities of the hydrographical conditions in the Channel, which have 

 appeared each time during the investigations of these two years, are as follows: the 

 Atlantic Stream ("Gulf Stream") has always been passing through the Channe.l as a surface- 

 current on its way towards the Norwegian Sea; water from the western part of the 

 Norwegian Sea has been streaming on the surface round the north of the Faeroes into 

 the western part of the Channel; and lastly the heavy cold bottom-water, which fills 

 the depths of the entire, large basin of the Norwegian Sea, was pressing along the 

 bottom of the Channel. The dimensions of these different water-masses and their mutual 

 relations, change greatly within a tolerably brief space of time, as the figures clearly 

 show. The regional variations have also been found to be very great, so that it is 

 necessary to have stations quite close to one another in order to be able to follow the 

 variations. As the network of Scottish observation-stations has been fairly complete, 

 however, it has been possible to study these variations in a much better way than 

 hitherto. 



If we investigate the Atlantic Stream, first of all, we find that it changes very greatly 

 in extent, in rapidity of flow and partly also in direction. Its main portion is represented 



