OCEANOGRAPHICAL RESULTS, MICHAEL SARS, 1900. 155 



temperature rising evidently by intermixture with coast-water. 

 Towards the north the sahnity was similarly diminishing, but 

 the temperature was to a great extent also sinking, which was 

 evidently due to intermixture with Polar water from the east 

 and north. In my treatise on the Oceanography of the North 

 Polar Basin I have discussed the course of this branch of the 

 Gulf Stream in the Barents and Murman Sea.^ 



The deeper strata of the Gulf Stream, deeper than 200 or 300 

 m., are prevented by the submarine plateau between Norway, Bear 

 Island, and Spitsbergen from running eastward, and must follow 

 the edge of this plateau towards the north, where it by the 

 Earth's rotation is constantly being forced eastward against the 

 edge of the continental shelf and against the west coast of 

 Spitsbergen, thus becoming continuously narrower but also deeper 

 and higher, and being again forced towards the surface. 



Section V (Pis. 10, 14) is a part of a section across this branch 

 of the Gulf Stream west of Bear Island. We see the salinities 

 and temperature has here been much lowered, the highest tem- 

 perature being 5'5°C. and the highest salinity 35'27 *^/oo. 



Section VI (Pis. 10, 14) from Iceland to Jan Mayen, passes 

 across the East Icelandic branch of the Polar Current (see espe- 

 cially Stats. 18 and 19). It is quite surprising how the vertical 

 distribution of the temperature and salinity in the Polar Current 

 even in these southerly latitudes is almost identical to that found 

 in the North Polar Basin during the Fram Expedition, The 

 chief differences being only that the temperatures and sahnities 

 of the uppermost strata are naturally higher in the more south- 

 ern latitudes; but at the same time the salinity, and to some 

 extent even the temperature, of the underlying water, between 

 250 m. and the bottom are lower in that sea than in the North 

 Polar Basin. The curves of deep-sea temperatures at stats. 18 

 and 19 (PL 4, Fig. 7; see also Stat. 29, PI. 4, Fig. 8) are those typical 

 for the Polar Sea, they have very nearly the same form as ours 



^ L. c, pp. 258 et seq. 



