38 Chapter I. 



the northern extremity of the eartlis axis that we set out, 

 for to reach this point is intrinsically of small moment. 

 Our object is to investigate the great unknown region that 

 surrounds the Pole, and these investigations will be 

 equally important from a scientific point of view whether 

 the expedition passes over the polar point itself or at 

 some distance from it." 



In this lecture I had submitted the most important 

 data on which my plan was founded ; but in the following 

 years I continued to study the conditions of the northern 

 waters, and received ever fresh proofs that my surmise 

 of a drift rio-ht across the Polar Sea was correct. In a 



O 



lecture delivered before the Geographical Society in 

 Christiania, on September 28th, 1892, I alluded to some 

 of these enquiries.* I laid stress on the fact that on 

 considering the thickness and extent of the drift-ice in 

 the seas on both sides of the Pole, one cannot but be 

 struck by the fact that while the ice on the Asiatic side, 

 north of the Siberian coast, is comparatively thin (the 

 ice in which the Jeannette drifted was as a rule not more 

 than from / to 10 feet thick) that on the other side, 

 which comes drifting from the north in the sea between 

 Greenland and Spitzbergen, is remarkably massive, and 

 this, notwithstanding that the sea north of Siberia is 

 one of the coldest tracts on the earth. This, I suggested, 

 could be explained only on the assumption that the ice is 



' See the Society's Annual, III, 1892, p. 91. 



