14 
B.  Helland-Hansen. 
[No.  15 
its  direction  and  merely  consider  the  intensity  of  its  movements. 
At  this  depth  however  the  water  was  not  carried  away  from  the 
hank.  The  rapid  changes  of  direction  indicate  vortices  over  the 
bank,  the  character  of  which  cannot  be  duly  traced. 
The  conditions  at  the  Edge  dose  to  the  drop  (the  continental 
slope),  where  the  depth  was  about  260  meters  (St.  307)  are  well 
illustrated  by  the  prog'ressive  vector-diagram  Plate  I.  The  direction 
in  the  upper  10  meters  was  on  the  average  S47“W;  deeper 
down  the  direction  was  more  eastwards ; but  the  differences  do  not 
amount  to  as  much  as  20°,  so  that  for  the  whole  mass  of  water 
from  the  surface  to  the  bottom  the  average  direction  was  about 
from  S.W.  to  N.E.  aloug  the  length  of  the  Edge. 
The  salinities  from  the  surface  down  to  about  75  meters  were 
under  35  per  mille;  and  this  layer,  if  we  accept  the  conventional 
hydrographic  deflnitions,  belongs  to  the  Coastal  .current;  it  moves 
here  accordingly  in  combination  with  the  actual  Atlantic  current 
and  has  exactly  the  same  direction. 
At  about  75  meters’  depth  there  were  indications  of  a minimum 
temperature.  Here  too,  as  in  the  fiords,  we  have  a minimum  velo- 
city.  Further  down  the  velocity  increased  steadily  as  we  descended 
and  was  on  the  average  greatest  at  about  200  meters,  .being  roughly 
15  cm.  per  second.  This  deeper  layer,  from  75  meters  to  the  bottom, 
was  Atlantic  water  of  high  salinity  (up  to  35.28  %o).  At  the  bottom 
the  average  velocities  were  of  no  great  strength:  still  the  current 
could  now  and  then  be  considerable  even  there,  and  on  one  occa- 
sion  we  noted  over  21  cm.  per  second  (10  nautical  miles  in  24 
hours).  This  velocity  is  sufticient  to  wash  away  from  the  bottom 
small  particles,  such  as  small  grains  of  sand,  and  accordingly  we 
found  the  bottom  to  consist  here  of  solid  rock. 
A series  of  observations  showed  that  the  current  at  the  sur- 
face itself  was  less  than  at  a few  centimeters  below  the  surface,  and 
this  part  of  the  Coastal  current  had  a maximum  velocity  at  about  5 
meters’  depth  averaging  26  cm.  per  second  towards  N.  47°  E.  (12V2 
nautical  miles  in  24  hours).  These  conditions  will  appear  from 
tigure  4.  The  unbroken  line  shows  the  average  velocities  calculated 
on  the  basis  of  the  vector-diagrains  (Plate  I);  this  curve  shows  ac- 
cordingly  the  average  transportation  of  the  masses  of  water  in  the 
course  of  25  hours  calculated  in  a straight  line  from  the  point  of 
