1897.] MELVILLE — REMARKS OX POLAR EXPEDITION. 459 



maintained in water whose depth is measured in hundreds of 

 fathoms. Such seas we did not find. Hence, my theory of wind 

 currents in a shallow sea. Another fact of our drift is that our floe 

 was continually swinging around, not always in the same direction, 

 as our ship's head pointed to every point of the compass, though 

 frozen solidly into the moving pack, demonstrating the fact that the 

 great floe itself was in a '* swirl." Dr. Nansen was more fortunate 

 in early striking ''Melville's Canal," where the water was deep 

 enough to permit ocean currents to run. 



Now, as regards the shallow sea over which the Jeannette 

 drifted: Is this shallow sea caused entirely by the silt of the great 

 northern rivers, or is it partly caused by the erosion of the land ? 

 The islands that extend all the way from the Lena Delta to " Ben- 

 nette," "Jeannette" and ''Henrietta," like so many stepping 

 stones from the mainland toward the Pole, were, in my belief, at no 

 very distant period, part of the mainland of Siberia. They are 

 daily being eroded by the drifting ice pack ; and, in time, nothing 

 but the bare rocks will remain of these islands. 



During our short stay on these islands, while on our march to the 

 south, and while we were in the Lena Delta, the land was not mak- 

 ing, but the daily evidence of the constant washing away by sea 

 and ice floe, or melting snow, and occasional rain, showed that the 

 islands were being denuded and eroded away. 



I saw, on the banks of the Lena Delta, immense trunks of trees, 

 with roots attached, that had apparently fallen in situ. Forty feet 

 above the bed of the river, these lands were gradually washing 

 away. These lands and the islands of the Arctic sea still show the 

 remains of the mammoth which, without doubt, was a native of 

 the mainland, and of the islands when they were part of the main- 

 land. We found remains— tusks and teeth of the mammoth— as 

 far north as Bennett Island, and, I doubt not, had time sufficed, 

 similar remains would have been found on the other islands visited 

 by the Jeannette. 



I have thus digressed, gentlemen, from the main question of Dr. 

 Nansen's drift, in order to justify the theory of a shallow sea more 

 than 1500 miles in extent, east and west, though perhaps local in 

 its northerly extension. 



And now that Dr. Nansen has made the most magnificent drift 

 on record, attained the highest latitude known to man, and made 

 the most fortunate and masterlv retreat, let us say, "Well done, 



