Introduction. 25 



fed by that branch of the Gulf Stream which makes 

 its way up the west side of Spitzbergen ; but this small 

 stream is far from being sufficient, and the main body 

 of its water must be derived from further northwards. 



"It is probable that the polar current stretches its 

 suckers, as it were, to the coast of Siberia and Bering 

 Strait, and draws its supplies from these distant regions. 

 The water it carries off is replaced partly through the 

 warm current before mentioned which makes its way 

 through Bering Strait, and partly by that branch of the 

 Gulf Stream which, passing by the north of Norway, 

 bends eastwards towards Novaya Zemlya, and of which 

 a great portion unquestionably continues its course along 

 the north coast of this island into the Siberian Arctic 

 Sea. That a current coming from the south takes 

 this direction, at all events in some measure, appears 

 probable from the well-known fact that in the northern 

 hemisphere the rotation of the earth tends to compel 

 a northward-flowing current, whether of water or of air, 

 to assume an easterly course. The earth's rotation may 

 also cause a southward-flowing stream, like the polar 

 current, to direct its course westward to the east coast 

 of Greenland. 



" But even if these currents flowing in the polar basin 

 did not exist, I am still of opinion that in some other way 

 a body of water must collect in it, sufficient to form a 

 polar current. In the first place there are the North 

 European, the Siberian and North American rivers 



