72 



MARION AND GENERAL GREENE EXPEDITIONS 



warmest water recorded in the lower right-hand corner of figure 41 

 marks the upper layers of the West Greenland Current which have 

 been further heated by the summer's sun. Little or no indication 

 of the penetration of the West Greenland Current into Baffin Bay 

 is to be found on figure 41. This strengthens the conjecture pre- 

 viously advanced that the more important inflow to Baffin Bay 

 follows along the deeper part of the Greenland slope and joins the 

 intermediate layers north of the ridge. The blanket-like layer of 



Figure 41. — The temperature at 75 meters. 



frigid water at 75 meters as marked by the — 1.5° C. isotherm on 

 figure 41 is spread completely across to the Disko Island slope. 

 This suggests an eastAvard flooding of the Baffin Land Current which 

 as interpreted by these observations overrode the warm current from 

 the south. Such behavior of the surface currents in the Davis Strait 

 sector are believed common, especially in winter when it is well 

 known that pack ice is carried, partly by wind and partly by current, 

 over to the Greenland coast. 



The strongest evidence that the previously described exchanges of 

 water through Davis Strait are divisible longitudinally into a 



