IV. 

 ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF THE SAMPLES. 



We still have to mention the organic particles in the samples. The 

 exceedingly unimportant part which these play has already been pointed out 

 in the introduction. In the samples taken nearest the coasts, there is hardly 

 any trace of organisms, and even in the deep-sea deposits there are strikingly 

 few, as compared with corresponding deposits from other oceans. The 

 reason of this is of course, that the greater part of the sea to the north of 

 Siberia is covered with ice all the year round, and therefore the conditions 

 for the development of plants or animals at the surface, are as bad as they 

 possibly can be 1 . This will appear more clearly in the following pages, in 

 which the quantities of the various organisms in the samples, will be briefly 

 reviewed. There is no question of the determination of the various species, 

 as that is beyond the scope of this paper. All that can be done here is to 

 establish the importance of the organisms as rock-forming constituents, in 

 order to have a basis of comparison between these deposits and other 

 corresponding deposits from early and late periods. 



Remains of Algce are found in certain of the samples, always in 

 extremely small and indeterminable fragments. They can only be found in 

 the rapidly-formed deposits nearest land, as in others they would be destroyed 

 in the course of time. As a rule they are found in very small quantities, a 

 single piece, or a very few pieces, being found among the coarser constituents 

 of most of the shore deposits; the greatest quantity is found in No. 1, in 

 which, however, they can only be estimated at 10 per cent of the coarser 



1 For the reasons of this, see Nansen's account in the 3rd vol. of the present work. 



