DAVIS STRAIT AND LABRADOR SEA / 



At the expiration of the 1935 ice season, Soule (1936), on the 

 United States Coast Guard cutter General Greene (the oceanographic 

 vessel of the International Ice Patrol), made a cruise to the southern 

 part of the Labrador Sea and eastward as far as the fortieth merid- 

 ian. Temperatures and salinities surface to bottom were collected 

 from a large number of stations, and also oxygen determinations 

 from a few, thus filling in a "blind spot" in the northwestern North 

 Atlantic from the Marion expedition's survey on the west to the 

 Meteor'^s on the east. 



The station table data and scientific results of the above Inter- 

 national Ice Patrol oceanographic work have all been published 

 in the series of annual reports of the International Ice Patrol. (See 

 Coast Guard bulletins 1-26.) 



In 1914r-15 Dr. Johan Hjort, in charge of a Canadian fisheries 

 expedition, made a careful and methodical study of the shelf waters 

 of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Sandstrom and Bjerkan (1916) 

 have reported on the dynamics and physical character of the water. 

 There are only a few features of direct importance to the present 

 discussion, 



. In 1916 from July to November Dr. Thorild Wulff in charge of 

 the hydrographical work of the II Thule Expedition took a total of 

 27 stations along the west Greenland slope from Disko Island to 

 Wolstenholme Fjord in Smith Sound. The table data have been 

 published in a short report by Martin Knudsen (1923). 



For a number of years, especially since 1924, the French Govern- 

 ment has carried out extensive studies in connection with the fishery 

 industry of the Grand Banks and west Greenland banks. Le Danois 

 (1924) in an exposition of his theory of "transgressions", sum- 

 marizes the results of French investigations of the Grand Banks. 

 The general distribution of temperature and salinity as shown in 

 the one profile, page 42, is similar to that which has been later 

 obtained in nearby localities by the Ice Patrol. Doubt has previously 

 been raised, however, regarding Le Danois' temperature values of 

 — 2° to —4° C. obtained between Green and St. Pierre Banks. Sub- 

 sequent observations both by ourselves and others indicate this to 

 be an error; the lowest temperature reading ever obtained by the Ice 

 Patrol in the coldest of the Arctic water being — 1.8° C. 



Captain L. Beauge of the French Naval Reserve, in command of 

 the French hospital ships Jeanne d\A.rG and VWe cVYs has carried on 

 the work of Le Danois and reported in a number of the issues of 

 les Revues des Travaux' (Beauge 1928 to 1933 inclusive) the results 

 of as many annual investigations on the hydrology of the Grand 

 Banks. The undulations in the boundary of "cod water" (3.5° C. 

 and 33%o), caused by Atlantic intrusions over the southwest slope 

 of the Grand Banks, are continually referred to, traced, and empha- 

 sized by Beauge. Le Danois' theory of oceanic transgressions across 

 continental slopes is applied and described as found annually for the 

 Grand Banks region. So practicable may it be, Beauge recommends 

 the use of subsurface thermometers to fishermen so that they may 

 locate the best places in which to fish. 



These papers contain many interesting remarks on other Grand 

 Banks hydrological features. For example an increase in the Arctic 

 character of the bottom water, paradoxically, is attributed to a de- 



