\ 



290 PETTERSSON, ON WATEJt AND ICE. 



water of little saltness, which is abundantly expanded över the 

 arctic sea from the sestuaries of the great Siberian rivers. I 

 therefore considered it a qiiestion of importance to examine 

 the behavior of ice, which has been formed under similar con- 

 ditions. Among the material collected by the Vega expedition 

 and forwarded to me, there was however no samples of water 

 formed by melting of real arctic ice. Still I deemed it in- 

 dispensable to test the properties of such ice, which really 

 had existed as ice in the sea and therefore tried by the kind 

 assistance of Captain Malmberg, Director of the Swedish 

 Nautical Meteorological Bureau, to obtain samples of sea ice 

 from several places of the Baltic and likewise from the coast 

 of Bohuslän. Minute instructions, enjoining the necessary pre- 

 cautions to be taken in collecting the ice, were issued from 

 the Bureau to the functionaries of the pilot office, and every 

 sample was accompanied by a report. The specimen chosen 

 for the first of the foUowing experiments was collected in Fe- 

 bruary or March 1880 in the midst of the Baltic sea just out- 

 side the harbor of Wisb3^ After the termination of the experi- 

 ment, the specific gravity, the latent heat and the percentage 

 of chlorine were ascertained immediately in the same quantity 

 of ivater, ivhicli liad heen employed in the dilatometer. The water 

 quantity was just sufficient for these purposes. But for the 

 chlorine determination the sample was found to be scanty. 

 I therefore made another titration with a greater quantity of 

 the original ice-water. 



Original sample. Ice-watei: IV. 



spec. gr. at ^—p C l.oooso 



p. c. of Cl 0.016 0.014 



I consider this specimen of ice to be a good representative 

 of that kind of arctic ice, which is eommonly called bay-iee. 

 A sample of such ice, which I found myself in July 1882 in 

 Danes Gat at Spitzbergen, contained O.ou % chlorine. Another 

 sample from the Ice-fiord contained O.oio % Cl. But the mani- 

 fold gradation in the saltness of the polar ice, whereof the 

 reader will get an idea by a glance at the tables in the next 

 chapter, forbids us to rely exclusively on conclusions drawn 

 from the examination of a single specimen. Besides, the per- 

 centage of chlorine is no adequate criterium of the chemical 

 constitution of ice [although it is a good standard of compari- 

 son for seawater], on account of the chemical metamorphosis, 

 ■\vhich gradually takes place in the ice. Therefore I chose for 



