I 



Brief review of hydrographicai investigations 

 in the Greenland Sea off N. E. Greenland. 



THE principal expeditions, which had made hydrographicai inves- 

 tigations in the waters off N. E. Greenland previous to the Dan- 

 mark Expedition and had published their results before 1906, were 

 the following ; 



1891 — 92 Danish Expedition under Captain С Ryder, 



1899 Swedish Expedition under Nathorst, 



1900 Danish Expedition under Captain G. Amdrup, 



1900 Swedish Expedition under Kolthoff, 



1901 Norwegian Expedition under Roald Aiiundsen. 



On the basis of the observations made by these expeditions, the 

 following, general picture of the hydrographicai conditions in the 

 Greenland Sea could be formed in 1906, the year when the Danmark 

 Expedition set out. 



The Greenland Sea, which means the portion of the Norwegian Sea 

 bounded by N. W. Spitzbergen to N. E. Greenland, from the latter to 

 Jan Mayen and Bjørneøen (Bear Island), consists of a deep central part 

 with a depth of over 3000 m. and has the form of a triangle wath a 

 broad base towards the south and the apex towards the north (see 

 bathymétrie chart of the Northern Ocean published in 1909 by Fr. 

 Nansen and Helland-Hansen, and PI. XI and XII at the end of 

 this report). 



The sides of the triangle are respectively the continental banks 

 of Spitzbergen and North-East Greenland, that is to say, the slopes 

 of varying breadth lying off the coasts of these countries. 



In the eastern part of the Sea the Gulf Stream runs northwards 

 along the coast of Spitzbergen, bringing with it water from the 

 Atlantic of some considerable warmth and salinity. A part of the 

 Stream passes beyond Spitzbergen into the northern Polar Sea. In 

 the western part of the Sea the Polar Current runs southwards carry- 

 ing with it the ice-masses of the North Polar Sea. This Current con- 

 sists of water, which is mixed with Siberian river-water, being thus 



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