SCIENTIFIC RESULTS 145 



less, to ice even 60 or TO miles out from the Baffin Land side. Off 

 Cape Dier, Baffin Land, in latitude 66° 30', the swiftest, inner side of 

 the cold stream split, one branch coursing in under the land, and 

 the other maintaining its distance from the coast and continuing in 

 a more or less parallel direction. Between these two branches the 

 Godtlmab found a counterclockwise eddy. 



The position and rate of flow of the Baffin Land current as found 

 by the Godthaab in September, 1928, off southern Baffin Land, were 

 further substantiated by the oceanographic observations, and the map 

 (fig. 95) compiled by the Mavfon expedition in mid August of the 

 same year. A winding floe, 50 miles in width, is clearly indicated on 

 Figure 95, curving around Cape Dier and thence continuing south- 

 ward toward Hudson Strait. Tlie bergs on the inner side of this floe 

 are borne along at the rate of 10 miles per day, and probably faster, 

 12 miles per day, farther inshore where the Marion was unable to 

 buck the pack ice. The Manon found that the ice in the outer, 

 eastern, side of the Baffin Land current moves slower the farther out 

 it is from land, but the current is so broad that bergs even halfway 

 across Davis Strait are slowly but definitely transported southwest- 

 ward by it. 



One of the most interesting parts of Baffin Bay from the viewpoint 

 of its circulation and the behavior of the ocean currents is the lower 

 end of the bay where its waters escape southward through the nar- 

 row neck of Davis Strait. Considerable importance attaches itself to 

 the movement here, not only as it vitally affects the drift of icebergs. 

 but also as it indicates whether or not masses from the North Atlantic 

 flow into Baffin Bay and to what degree. Consideration of the 

 observations made by the Michael Sars in 1924, and the Godthaab 

 and Marion in 1928, regarding the position and form of the isobaths 

 drawn from the foregoing data (see fig. 91) clearly show^s two main 

 forces present. There is the light water along the Greenland coast, 

 and over the off-lying banks Sukkertoppen to Egedesminde, which 

 initiates a dynamic, northward movement of the water particles; 

 while on the American side, 180 miles to the westward, similar forces 

 are at work developing a gradient current in the opposite direction. 

 The important feature, well portrayed by the observations, is the 

 fact that the steeper and larger dynamic gradients belong to the 

 western side of this narrowest part of Davis Strait. 



A comparison of the data collected by the three expeditions, viz, 

 Michael Sars in 1924, Godthaab in 1928, and the Marion in 1928, re- 

 veals plainly that there is a continual fluctuation in the position and 

 velocity of the two opposing movements in this narrow neck of Davis 

 Strait. As one current swells, the other retreats, but as a rule, the 

 Baffin Land flow appears to be the stronger and the more voluminous. 

 For example, the first week in August, 1928 (see fig. 95), the w^est 

 Greenland current was found to have little movement, while the 

 Baffin Land set had a width of 40 miles and a rate of 12 miles 

 per day. Early in September, however, about a month later, the 

 Godthaab (fig. 91) found the Baffin Land current had overflowed 

 more than halfway across the strait, and the west Greenland stream 

 had been pushed over against the Greenland coast and now had a 

 width of only 12 miles. The eastward encroachment of the Baffin 

 Land current is planily discernible in the form and the position of the 

 isobaths between parallels 67 and 68. (Fig. 91.) 



