THE NORTH POLAR BASIN. 379 



Greenland, and lie bases Ids lio])es upon three facts. First, that many 

 articles from the wreck of the Jcan)if'tie were lound on an u'e-tloe off 

 the south coast of Greeidand three 3'ears afterward; second, that a 

 harpoon -thrower of a pattern unknown except in Alaska was picked 

 up on the southwest coast of Greenland; and, third, that driftwood 

 supposed to be of Siberian origin is stranded n\<;nlarl3' m consider- 

 able quantity on the coasts of Greenland. The Norwegian at Hammer- 

 fest, about latitude 70^, is dei»endent i'or his firewood upon the Gulf 

 Stream, which brings him jin ample supply from the Gulf of Mexico, 

 whilst the Eskimo on the Greenland coast, in the same latitude, trusts 

 to a current from the opposite direction to bring him his necessary store 

 of wood from the Siberian forests. 



\\'e can only hope that Nansen will find tlie currents as favorable to 

 his needs, and that so much l)ravery may l)e supi)oited by good luck. 



THE IIIYER SYSTEMS. 



By no means the least important ]tliysi('al feature of the Polar Basin 

 is its gigantic river systeiys. 



Thexivers which flowinto the Arctic Ocean are some of them amongst 

 the greatest in the world. 



Some idea of the relative sizes of the drainage areas of a few of the 

 best known rivers maybe learned from the following table, in which the 

 Thames, with a drainage area of 0,000 square miles, is the unit: 



9 Thames =1 Elbe (54,000). 



2 Elbes =1 Pechora ( 108,000). 



21 Pechoras =:; 1 Danube (270,000), 



2 Danubes =1 Mackenzie (540,000) 



2 Mackeuzies =1 Yenisei (1,080,000). 



2 Yeniseis = 1 Amazon (2,160,000). 



Perhaps a more scientific classification of rivers would be to call 

 those with a drainage area l)etween 2,.")G0 000 and 1,280 000 square miles 

 rivers of the first magnitude, a category which contains the Amazon 

 alone. There are ten rivers of the second magnitude, with drainage 

 areas between 1,280,000 and 640,000 square miles (Ob, Congo, Missis- 

 sippi, La Plata, Yenisei, Nile, Lena, Niger, Amur, Yangtse). There 

 are twelve rivers of the third magnitude, with drainage areas between 

 640,000 and 320,000 square miles (Mackenzie, Volga, Murray, Zambesi, 

 Saskatchewan, Ganges, St. Lawrence, Orange, Orinoco, Hoang Ho, 

 Indus, and Bramaputra). There are more than a dozen rivers of the 

 fourth magnitude, with drainage areas between 320,000, and 160,000 

 square miles, but none of them empties itself into the Arctic Ocean. 

 They iii"clude the Danube, Euphrates, and several of the African and 

 South American rivers. Of the numerous rivers which are of the fifth 

 magnitnde, with drainage areas between 160,000 and 80,000 square 

 miles, the Pechora belongs to the Polar Basin. The number of rivers 



