The Arctic Sea presents a great contrast between the salinity of the surface of the ice-free Norwegian Sea with 35 to 35.4 and that of the Central Polar Basin, which is dominated by river water and melted ice, and has a salinity less than 25 per mille in most parts.
These eremites also navigated the sea north of Iceland on their first arrival, and found it ice-free for one day's sail, after which they came to the ice-wall.
Hango owes its commercial importance to the fact that it is practically the only winter ice-free port in Finland, and is thus of value both to the Finnish and the Russian sea-borne trade.
He had concluded peace with the Porte (June 13, 1700) on very advantageous terms, in order to devote himself wholly to a war with Sweden to the end that Russia might gain her proper place on the Baltic. The possession of an ice-free seaboard was essential to her natural development; the creation of a fleet would follow inevitably upon the acquisition of such a seaboard; and she could not hope to obtain her due share of the trade and commerce of the world till she possessed both.
In the ice-free belt, between the northern ice-sheet and the vastly extendedglaciers of the Alps, the two floras must have found a common refuge and congenial conditions of existence; and this view is confirmed by direct palaeontological evidence.