22 KJELLMAN, THE ALG^ OF THE ARCTIC SEA. 



is broken up or melted. ^) North and east of Spitzbergen the state of the ice is more 

 difficult, as is also the case in the American Arctic Sea, where the English arctic voy- 

 agers have been able to perform their grand work of discovery only by small steps and 

 by means of hard, continual struggles against the ice. The part of the Polar region 

 which is the most inaccessible of all in consequence of the ice, is the east and south 

 coast of Greenland, against which the mighty Polar current, coming from the north- 

 east and the east, presses its huge masses of ice. In accordance and, I believe, causal 

 connexion with these conditions, we find the vegetation on the upper part of the bottom 

 in the Greenland Sea, the eastern Murman Sea, the Kara and the Siberian Seas, and 

 the American Arctic Sea extremely poor, in the south-western part of Baffin Bay and 

 in the White Sea richer and more luxuriant, though monotonous, in the Norwegian 

 Polar Sea luxuriant and rich both in individuals and species. 



The configuration of the coast. It is a well-known fact that certain algaB choose 

 exclusively, or at least prefer, such parts of the coast as are exposed to the open sea, 

 and that others, on the contrary, attain their most vigorous development and grow in 

 the greatest abundancy in sheltered localities. This certainly applies chiefly to litoral 

 algag, but even among the sublitoral ones there are to be found forms that are pelagic 

 and such as are not. Thus the composition and general character of the marine vege- 

 tation may depend, in a certain degree, on the configuration of the coast. If the other 

 circumstances are alike, a coast ought to be more favourable for the growth of algae, the 

 more extensive and rich its border of outlying islands (»skargard») is, and the more the 

 coast is intersected by numerous and deep bays. In this respect, however, the configura- 

 tion of the coast is no doubt of very little importance for the vegetation of the Arctic 

 Sea, but it is important with regard to its being more or less fit to protect the vegetation 

 against the destructive agency of the drift-ice. A rich «skarg&.rd» forms a fence against 

 the drift-ice, within which alg£e may spring up and complete their development in 

 peace, and the ice can hardly penetrate in any great quantity into deep, narrow bays. 

 It seems probable that the richness and luxuriancy of growth which mark the vegetation 

 among the isles off the north-western coast of Spitzbergen are in no slight degree 

 owing to the shelter afforded it by the isles against large, deep-going floes or blocks 

 of ice floating about here. I will also remark that I have never, within the confines 

 of the Arctic Sea, found any noteworthy litoral vegetation on an exposed coast, but only 

 in sheltered places on the inside of the isles, for instance at Fairhaven at Spitzbergen, 

 or in deeper bays, for instance in the interior of Ice-fjord at Goose-islands at Spitz- 

 bergen, in the deep Besimannaya Bay, in Karmakul Bay, which is shallow but filled 

 with a number of rocks and islets, on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, in Actinia 

 Bay, which is sheltered in all directions and outside which is situated the largest 

 ))skargard» in the whole Siberian Sea, except the group of isles at the mouth of the 

 Yenissei. I have mentioned before that Actinia Bay was one of the places richest in 

 algaj that I found during the voyage of the Vega north of Asia. With regard to 

 favourable configuration, the coasts of Norway and Greenland are much better off 



') Op. NoRDENSKioLD, Vega-exp. 1. p. 23, 154, 155. 



