Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/648

 

 NORWEGIAN SEA. The sub-polar regions of the Atlantic lying between the Scandinavian peninsula and Greenland have been in recent years carefully investigated by Norwegian expeditions under Professors Mohn and Sars; and, as the sea immediately to the west of Norway has not hitherto been known by any distinctive name, Mohn has proposed the name of “Norwegian Sea,”—a suggestion which has been now generally adopted. The Norwegian Sea, therefore, includes the whole of the region between Greenland and Norway, a portion of which, to the north west of the island of Jan Mayen, is sometimes known as the Greenland Sea. The Norwegian Sea is a well-marked basin cut off from the Atlantic by submarine ridges connecting the north of Scotland, the Faroe Islands, Ice land, and Greenland. On the summit of these ridges

there is an average depth of about 250 fathoms. Between Spitzbergen and Lapland there is a wide opening into the Barents Sea, where the depth is from 100 to 200 fathoms. Between Spitzbergen and Greenland a wide and deep opening extends into the frozen Arctic Ocean, with a depth of 2500 fathoms. The surrounding land is almost everywhere high, rugged, deeply indented with fjords, and skirted with outlying islands, which are mostly composed of stratified rocks and ancient geological formations. Jan Mayen, situated near the centre of the basin, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands are of volcanic origin.

The marked peculiarity of the Norwegian Sea is the striking contrast in the climate of its eastern and western portions. If we draw a line from the east side of Iceland to the south end of Spitzbergen we have, generally speaking,