26 MARIOX EXPEDITION TO DAVIS STItAIT AXD BAFFIN BAY 



rents mav telescope the fields and floes, layer upon layer, to a height 

 of 30 to 40 feet, and to depths of 100 to -iob feet. 



Our knowledge regarding the movement and behavior of the great 

 polar cap, is confined, with few exceptions, to observations along its 

 frontier from the following sources : (a) From the drift of ships 

 which have been imprisoned in the margin; (h) from a few ex- 

 tended sledge excursions of polar explorers; and (c) from the records 

 of drift objects released at various points. These are tabulated 

 below : 



{a} Drift 



Ship : 



Jeaunette (DeLoiig) . 750 miles. (From tlie vicinity of Wrangel Islaml 



westerly to 80 miles northeast of Bennett Island.) 



Fram (Nansen) 1,400 miles. (From north of the New Siberian 



Islands westerly to north of Spitsbergen.) 



Tesietthoff (Weyprecht) 250 miles. (Ice Cape. Novaya Zemlya westerly to 

 southeast coast of Franz Josef Land.) 



St. Anna (Briisilov) 850 miles. (Southern part of Kara Sea via its east- 

 ern side to north of lee Cape, Novaya Zeml>a.) 



Young- Phoenix 375 miles. (From Point Barrow easterly to Return 



Reef, thence westerly past Point Barrow, and 

 linally disapi>eared in the northwest.) 



Knrluk (Bartlett) .500 miles. (From Point Barrow westerly to 75 



miles north of Herald Island.) 



Maud (Amundsen) 75(» miles. (From 125 miles northwest of Wrangel 



Island westerly to .50 miles north of New 

 Sil)erian Islands.) 



(h) Sledging journey's out on to the polar cap ice from their 

 very nature do not give as good opportunities for observation on the 

 movement of the ice as do the more accuratel}^ measured tracks of 

 imprisoned vessels. Peary, on dashes to the northward of Ellesmere 

 Land toward and to the pole, believed that the pack outside the 

 continental edge was sliding ea.stward. Cagni, pushing poleward 

 from Franz Josef Land Avas carried steadily toward the west. 

 Storkerson and Wilkins on the opposite side of the polar sea also 

 experienced a westerly drift. 



((-) In 1898 the Geographical Society of Philadelphia supported a 

 project to release a number of drift casks or buoys at various points 

 north of Berling Strait in order to learn the set and drift of the 'ce. 

 Three of the buoys, which we will call '' a,'' " b," and '' c," were 

 recovered as follows : 



Cask •• a."— 1,400 miles. Set adrift xVugust 21, 1901, in 72° 18' 

 north, 175° 10' west, about 85 miles northeast of Wrangel Island, 

 was recovered August 17, 1902, near the mouth of Kolyuchin Bay on 

 the Siberian coast. 



Cask '"b."— 3,500 miles. Set adrift September 13, 1899, on the 

 pack ice west-north Avest of Point BarroAv in 71° 53' north, 164° 50' 

 west, was recovered June 7, 1905, 1 mile east of Cape Rauda Xupr on 

 the northern coast of Iceland. 



Cask " c.''— 3,500 miles. Set adrift July 24, 1900, at Cape Bathurst 

 in 71° 00' north, 128° 05' west, was recovered Xovember 3, 1908, on 

 Storo Island, Finmarken, Norway. 



Wreckage from the Jeatinette drifted from the vicinity of Bennett 

 Island, to Julianehaab, Greenland, a distance of about 3,600 miles. 

 Siberian tree trunks and other objects of Asiatic origin are quite 



