100 
Goode & Bean)produced by the Labrador current, sometime (1882) 
when it displaced the Golf current for a Space along the east coast 
of the United States, 1 ) I wrote to our distinguished hydrographer, Dr. 
phil.J. N. Nielsen, laying Miiller’s report before him, and begging 
him to express his opinion of this case. In his reply Dr. Nielsen 
says as follows: “I do not think that the polar current at Sukker¬ 
toppen is of particular consequence in winter, but what is really 
important in this case is the refrigeration of the water in that place 
in winter. As we have seen from the “Tjalfe” -F- 1 0 may very well 
be recorded down to 100 meters and perhaps even further down, off 
Sukkertoppen, towards the end of the winter, but I think that the 
alterations in temperature are progressing slowly, in consequence 
of the refrigeration from above, and not with the suddenness with 
which a cold current may supersede a warm current, such as was 
the case at the east coast of the United States. Of course it is 
difficult to deny that a similar phenomenon may locally take place 
here at Sukkertoppen, and we might perhaps imagine the bottom 
to be of such a form that there was a shoal of redfish standing 
in a limited area of warm water of small thickness, and that this 
water then for some reason would retire. 
As R. Muller correctly observes, it is not likely that the water 
is refrigerated to its freezing point, as far down as to the depths 
where the redfish is normally living, and consequently we cannot 
speak of any bottom frost such as it has been reported from Lim¬ 
fjorden where the bottom frost is said sometimes to cause great 
mortality among the oysters. The experiment with the iced fishing 
hook does not prove the water to be cold at the bottom; the ice 
which covered the hook when it was lowered, has no doubt melted, 
but when the hook is hauled up again it will once more be iced 
when passing through the upmost cold water stratum with the ice 
needles. 
I will, however, call the attention to Miiller’s observation that 
the stomach did not protrude from its mouth. This possibly in- 
dicates that the fish — hunting for food f. inst. — had mounted 
to higher strata than it is usually frequenting, and that it did then 
become so weak in the cold water that it could not dive down again, 
and slowly died. 
*) Compare H. C. Bumpus in Buli. of the U. S. Fish Commission,XVIII, 
1898, pp. 321—333. (Washington 1899). 
