238 
• GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
fathoms; muddy bottom. From the angle form¬ 
ed by the line, there appeared to be some little 
current setting towards the NW., true. The 
temperature of the sea, at the surface, was 34°; 
and within five fathoms of the bottom, by a Six’s 
thermometer, it was 29°. The air, at the same 
time, was 42°. 
In all former experiments upon the tempera¬ 
ture of the Greenland Sea, 1 have invariably 
found it to be warmer below than at the surface. 
This exception, therefore, is remarkable. On my 
first trial, made in the summer of 1810, in lati¬ 
tude 76" 16', longitude 9° 0' E., the temperature, 
at the depth of 1380 feet, was found to be 33°.3 
(by the water brought up), whilst at the surface 
it was 28°.8. In nearly twenty subsequent expe¬ 
riments, an increase of temperature was in like 
manner discovered on bringing water from below, 
or on sending down a register-thermometer to a 
considerable depth. In one instance (the latitude 
being 79° 0' N., and longitude 5° 40' E.) there 
was an increase of 7° of temperature on descend¬ 
ing 600 feet; and in another series of experi¬ 
ments, near the same place, an increase of 8° was 
found at the depth of 4380 feet. 
What renders this increase of temperature on 
descending in the Spitzbergen Sea, the more ex¬ 
traordinary, is the fact, that, in almost all other 
