KONGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND. 20. N:0 5. 24 
Anabar, Olenek, Lena, Jana, Indigirka, Alasei, and Kolyma are discharged into the 
Arctic Sea and during the summer produce comparatively warm currents of water along 
the coast; on the eastern side, on the contrary, no large river issues into the sea. 
Accordingly, no coast currents conducive to the forming of an ice-free sea occur here, 
as is the case along the whole coast from the White Sea to the Kolyma.»*) Detailed 
statements on the saltness of the water in the Siberian Arctic Sea will be had, when 
the hydrographical observations regularly made during the Vega expedition shall have 
been worked out. I have only to add here, that according to these observations the 
specific gravity of the sea-water at the surface at the dredging-places between Cape Chelyu- 
skin and Cape Baranow never exceeded 1,023, and generally kept at about 1,1, i. e. did 
not even reach the gravity corresponding to a mixture of one part of sea-water with 
two parts of river-water. Off the Lena for instance, the specific gravity amounted only 
to from 1,00:0 to 1,0046, i. e. to about as much as that of the water in the southern 
part of the Botnic Bay *). 
It is certainly quite true that in the eastern part of the Kara Sea and in the 
western part of the Siberian Sea the salinity of the water increases with the depth, 
as has been stated both by NorprnskiOLp and SruxBerG in their above-mentioned works. 
Observations made during the Vega expedition are quite conclusive on this point; some 
of them have been set forth by SruxBerc. But on examining the figures contained in 
the dredging journal of the Vega, it will be clearly seen that at many places from the 
surface down to that depth where alge grow in the greatest number in the Arctic Sea 
proper, the salinity of the water is comparatively slight, essentially less than in many 
other seas and in the greater part of the Arctic Sea itself. The following figures out 
of the journal just mentioned may serve to prove this fact °). 
Depth in Spee. gravity of the water 
Lat. Long. fathoms. at the bottom. 
142 52 N: 85° 8 6 1,0133. 
TBO wry 14° 58° 6 1,0151. 
(ic: Seg alee 130° 20’ » ib) 1 0050. 
(ae: F357 38" 16 1,0128. 
Taba 3 158790 > 12 1,0165. 
73° 40! » 140° 16’ » 4 1 ,0120. 
AS ial “se 1a 36" 9 1,0145. 
tor oD. 144° 20’ » 8 10144. 
72° 208 » 153° 30° » 10 1,0202. 
TBP» a be os 10 1,0198. 
These figures prove that in the eastern part of the Kara Sea and still more in 
the western part of the Siberian Sea, namely the extensive stretch between the mouths 
of the Chatanga and the Kolyma, the sea-water at the coast at the depth of about 
) NoRDENSKIOLD, Vega-exp. 1, p. 29 and 154—155. 
2) Cp. Sruxpere, Vega-exp. 1, p. 684—687 and 694 
3) Cp. Sruxsere, Vega-exp. 1, p. 684—687. 
