The Hydrography of the Faeroe-Shetland Channel

Abstract

IN that portion of the programme of international investigation of the North Sea (as finally drawn up by the conference at Copenhagen last July) which provides for a coordinated series of hydrographic cruises at intervals of three months, it falls to Scotland to investigate the Faeroe-Shetland Channel and adjacent waters. It was important that the work should be begun as soon as possible, and especially so in order that the sea-temperatures, &c., should not go unrecorded in this abnormal season; but it would have been impossible to begin at so short notice had not Dr. Hjort, the director of the Norwegian investigation, helped by the loan of apparatus and by permitting his hydrographic assistant, Mr. Helland-Hansen, to come over and inaugurate the work. The Admiralty gave the use of H.M.S. Jackal; Lieutenant and Commander Sharpe and Mr. Helland-Hansen were conjointly responsible for the observations, and the report will be drawn up by Mr. Helland-Hansen, who has sent me the preliminary account which follows. The Jakal's course lay from the Moray Firth to Lerwick, thence in a north-easterly direction nearly to the Norwegian coast, then west to the Faeroes, thence to Fair Isle and out into the North Sea again; and it was so planned as to give, over each of the more important areas, double and approximately parallel lines of observations. Between August 25 and September 1, hydrographic observations were taken at twenty-six stations, and in addition surface-temperatures were taken every hour. A small number of plankton samples was collected also, but not to the extent that will be done on future cruises.