34 



further exploration in this quarter ma)- indeed, in many ways, help 

 to solve questions of scientific interest, but is not likely to lead us 

 towards the Pole. So that whilst every one interested in Arctic 

 exploration would countenance and support any well-devised plan of 

 further examination of these coasts, those who would prefer absolute 

 discovery of new ground to the more exact survey of old, are 

 compelled to turn in another direction. Whether the facts will 

 elsewhere be more favourable, we do not know ; we cannot know till 

 the thing has been tried. 



As to what has quite lately been done, the newspapers have 

 rendered Professor Nordenskicild's success sufficiently notorious. 

 It is therefore only necessary to mention that his ship, the "Vega," 

 sailed along the north coast of Europe and Asia, without meeting 

 any serious obstruction. What ice there was, was light and rotten ; 

 and it was not till she was close to Bering Strait, the goal of her 

 voyage, that, on the 28th September, 1878, she was absolutely 

 stopped. A day or two more would have cleared her. Possibly if 

 she had started a day or two earlier, all might have been right. 

 But the essential peculiarity of Siberian navigation is that it is 

 about a month later than that of the seas west of Greenland. At 

 the earlier season, when, from more westerly experience, the sea 

 might be expected to open, the Kara Sea is blocked with impene- 

 trable ice floes. It used to be known as the '■ ice-cellar." It not 

 only had its own ice, but, through the early summer, the great 

 Siberian rivers, the Obi and the Yenisei more especially, discharged 

 into it their ice, borne thither b}- a westerly current. It is not till 

 the summer is well advanced that these rivers, now bringing water 

 ■varmed by a southern sun, counteract the ill they have formerly 

 done, melt the ice out of the cellar, and, spreading out across the 

 Siberian Sea, make all the ice more or less rotten ; whilst further 

 westward, west of Novaya Zemlya, the water of the Gulf Stream 

 tends to produce a somewhat similar effect, and strengthens the 

 influence of the rivers. This is the peculiarity which it was left for 

 the Swedes, the Nonvegians, and the Austrians of our own time to 

 discover. The Swedes more especially, under the zealous direction 

 of Nordenskiold, have been working on this basis for about the last 



