KONGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND. 20. N:0 5. 23 



than the other coasts of the Arctic Sea. Here there is found a rich »skärgård» and 

 the coast is intersected by numerous larger and smaller bays entering into the land in 

 different directions. At Spitzbergen the »skärgård» is small, and the bays comparatively 

 few, being moreover too wide to afford any greater protection against drift-ice. The 

 coasts of southern Novaya Zemlya and of Waygats are still worse off in this respect, and 

 on all the long Siberian coast, judging from the experience gained during the Vega 

 expedition, there is scarcely to be found any place where a larger ship can lie safe from 

 the waves and the drift-ice during a sea-wind, except Dickson Harbour and Actinia Bay. 

 About half of the American coast on the Arctic Sea appears to be very open. The 

 existence of a richer and more vigorous raarine vegetation on the west coast of Green- 

 land in the litoral zone and the upper part of the sublitoral zone may be, and in my 

 opinion ought to be, explained by this coast possessing a large number of isles and bays 

 and affording thereby the necessary protection to the algte against the drift-ice. 



The tides. The tides may be considered to contribute indirectly towards impo- 

 verishing or annihilating the vegetation on the upper part of the bottom in the greater 

 part of the Arctic Sea, because by keeping the ice in continual motion they make it per- 

 form incessantly its destructive work, and because larger parts of the bottom can be 

 reached and abraded, at certain times, even by more shallow-going ice. Moreover, ihe 

 litoral zone being laid bare at low-M^ater, the vegetation which may possibly be found 

 in that region, becomes exposed, at least during certain parts of the year, to conditions 

 that must be regarded as unfavourable. This point will be considered below. Even 

 in winter the ice which lies along the coasts is not in repose, whatever may be the 

 size of the pieces. During the winter stay of the Swedish expedition on the north 

 coast of Spitzbergen, the sea off Musselbay was covered by masses of ice, several miles 

 broad and apparently härd frozen together. From these a grating sound was heard 

 incessantly, caused by the friction exercised by the ice-blocks and ice-fioes on one 

 another during their ceaseless rising and sinking and their slight progressive and re- 

 gressive movements. But in these movements, however insignificant, caused by the 

 tidal currents, the ice-masses exercise a continual friction even on the bottom. In 

 summer the motion of the ice, produced by the tides, is sometimes very violent, espe- 

 cially in narrow sounds and bays. Out of a number of instances, I choose one from 

 Novaya Zemlya. In the western part of the strait, Matotshkin Shar, which divides its 

 two main islands, there goes, during the ebb, a very violent current from east to west. 

 During the stay of the Swedish expedition of 1875, the ice in the interiör of the 

 strait was breaking up, and the drift-ice, thus formed, rushed westwards during the 

 ebb with such a violence, that the little vessel of the expedition was in great danger 

 and had to be removed incessantly from one anchorage to another in order to be 

 sheltered from the ice. »Once the icemasses, floating vehemently forwards in the strait,» 

 says Nordenskiöld in his relation of this incident, »were on the very point of tearing 

 away our little smack from au anchorage somewhat iraprudently chosen and of either 

 pressing it up on the dry land or carrying it out into the open sea» '). The rush of 



1) Nordenskiöld, Proven, p. 22. 



