(a) Ocean water of 35 pro mille salinity or more.
(b) North Sea water, the predominant water in the North Sea area, of 34 to 35 pro mille salinity.
(c) Bank water, 32 to 34 pro mille, which forms a broad edging covering the coast banks of Holland, Germany, Denmark and Norway.
The deepest water stratum in the Skagerrak is certainly of oceanic origin; it has been found to suffer changes of long period, and it is probably not always composed of water derived from the same part or the same depth of the North Atlantic; this water is, as a rule, deficient in oxygen. The "North Sea" water, of 34 to 35 pro mille salinity, does not appear at the surface in the Skagerrak, except as a strip along part of the coast of Jutland, but it is always found as an undercurrent overlying the oceanic water. It enters into all the deep coast channels, and into the Christiania fjord, but it is not always found in the deep channels of the Kattegat. The principal time of inflow of North Sea water is during spring and summer. The bank-water of 32 to 34 pro mille salinity is found all along the continental coast of the North Sea and North Atlantic, and it may therefore enter the Skagerrak either from the North Sea or from the north along the coast of Norway. It is probable indeed that an influx of this water occurs from both directions—in August and September from the south, and in the late winter and early spring from the north. The seasonal changes in the distribution of the bank-waters in different parts of the coast are too complex to be briefly explained; their relations to the times of occurrence of various fisheries of the region present many remarkable features, which have been investigated in recent years by the Swedish Commission.
On the west and south coasts of Sweden, and in the Skagerrak south-east of Norway, navigation is interfered with by ice only in severe winters, and then the ice is usually drifting, compact sea-ice being very rare. Between Stockholm and Visby navigation usually ceases at the end of December and begins again about the 10th of April. During very severe winters the Åland Sea is covered with thick ice available for traffic. The south part of the Gulf of Bothnia is covered with ice every winter along the coasts, but rarely, if ever, in its central part. Navigation is interrupted by drifting ice from about the middle of November to the beginning of May, though the port of Hernösand has been known to remain open during a whole winter. The northern Quarken is covered with traversable ice every third or fourth year. The northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen every winter. In the Gulf of Finland the sea is closed to navigation by ice for about 150 days in the year; but navigation is rendered possible throughout the winter by the use of ice-breakers.
See references to different parts of the subject in the standard books of A. Penck, A. de Lapparent, E. Suess and others. Also Credner, Die Entstehung der Ostsee (Leipzig, 1895); G. de Geer, Om Skandinaviens nivåforändringar under quartärperioden (Stockholm, 1888); R. Sieger, Seeenschwankungen und Strandverschiebungen in Skandinavien (Berlin, 1893); O. Pettersson, "Review of Swedish Hydrographic Research," Scottish Geographical Magazine (1894); N. Ekholm, Om klimatets ändringar i geologisk och historisk tid. Ymer (Stockholm, 1899); Publications of the International Council for the Study of the Sea (Copenhagen, since 1902).
(H. N. D.)
BALTIMORE, GEORGE CALVERT, 1st Baron (c. 1580-1632), English statesman, son of Leonard Calvert, and Alice, daughter of John Crosland of Crosland, was born at Kipling in Yorkshire and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. After travelling on the continent, he entered the public service as secretary to Robert Cecil, afterwards earl of Salisbury. In 1606 he was appointed clerk of the crown in Connaught and Clare, in 1608 a clerk of the council, and was returned to parliament for Bossiney in 1609. He assisted James I. in his discourse against Vorstius, the Arminian theological professor of Leiden, and in 1613 took charge of the Spanish and Italian correspondence. The same year he was sent on a mission to Ireland to investigate grievances. For these services he was rewarded by knighthood in 1617, followed by a secretaryship of state in 1619 and a pension of £2000 a year in 1620. He represented successively Yorkshire (1621) and Oxford University (1624) in the House of Commons, where it fell to him in his official capacity to communicate the king's policy and to obtain supplies. He was distrusted by the parliament, and was in favour of the unpopular alliance with Spain and the Spanish marriage. Shortly after the failure of the scheme he declared himself a Roman Catholic, and on the 12th of February 1625 threw up his office, when he was created Baron Baltimore of Baltimore and received a grant of large estates in Ireland. Henceforth he was seen little in public life and his attention was directed to colonial enterprise, with which his name will be always associated. He had established a small settlement in Newfoundland in 1621, for which under the name of Avalon he procured a charter in 1623, and which he himself visited in 1627. In consequence of disputes and the unsuitable nature of the climate he sailed thence for Virginia, but was forbidden to settle there unless he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. He returned home, and died on the 15th of April 1632 before a new concession was secured, the charter of Maryland passing the great seal on the 20th of June 1632 in favour of his son Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, who founded the colony. Baltimore married Anne, daughter of George Mynne of Hurlingfordbury, Hertfordshire, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. He wrote Carmen funebre in D. Hen. Untonum (1596); The Answer to Tom Tell-Troth ... (1642) is also attributed to him, and Wood mentions Baltimore as having composed "something concerning Maryland." His letters are to be found in various publications, including Strafford's Letters, Clarendon State Papers and the Calendars of State Papers.
Bibliography.—George and Cecilius Calvert by William Hand Browne (1890); article by C. H. Firth in the Dict. of Nat. Biog. with references there given; Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (Bliss) ii. 522; Doyle's, The English in America; Discourse on the Life and Character of Sir G. Calvert by J. P. Kennedy (1845), with the Review and the Reply to the same; London Magazine, June 1768; "Sir G. Calvert," by L. W. Wilhelm (Maryland Hist. Soc., 14th April 1884); The Nation, vol. 70, p. 95; American Historical Review, vol. 5, p. 577.