Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/185

Rh to deny its existence and call this well-known phenomenon by some other name. Surely the finding by Torell in Spitsbergen in 1861 of the West Indian Bean Entada gigalobinum is sufficient evidence alone—call it drift, current, stream, or what you will. To the Gulf Stream is largely due the open conditions of the seas on the west of Spitsbergen, and, under certain conditions, north-eastward even to the north of Novaya Zemlya and the shores of Franz Josef Land; it also influences to a considerable extent the climate of western Europe and Britain, keeping the Norwegian fiords free of ice throughout the winter.

Relative to investigations on the influence of the Gulf Stream on the Polar Basin, is work done in what one might call a subarctic region, namely in the Faeroe Channel, during the cruises of the Lightning and Porcupine in 1868 and 1869, where the flow of the Gulf Stream is north-eastward across the ridge, between the Faeroes and Iceland. In more recent years, the Scottish Fishery Board cruisers have made additional more detailed investigations as well as the Norwegian Fishery steamer Michael Sars. Many of the most important and interesting problems regarding the physics of Arctic seas circle round the influence of the Gulf Stream.

The intermediate warm layer of water is not peculiar to the Arctic Regions. "The