Basin of the Arctic Sea. 25 



The Basin of the Arctic Sea. — It has been already 

 observed in the commencement of this chapter that the region 

 enclosed within the Arctic Circle forms an area of depression, 

 almost completely surrounded by the land-masses of the great 

 eastern and western continents. A shallow strait of less than 

 fifty fathoms in depth connects it with the Pacific Ocean, and 

 it is separated from the depths of the Atlantic by the plateau 

 between the British Islands and Iceland, which rises to within 

 500 fathoms of the sea-surface. Greenland is probably the 

 largest land-mass belonging to this basin, and next in importance 

 we have the group of Spitzbergen, of Franz Joseph Land, dis- 

 covered by the Austrian expedition ; Novaya Zemblya, the 

 Liakhov Islands, Kellett Land, off Behring Strait, discovered 

 by the Americans in 1867 ; and finally the extensive archipelago, 

 a continuation of the American continent, the extreme northern 

 limit of which has been recently determined by the officers of 

 the English Polar Expedition, commanded by Captain Sir 

 George S. Nares. 



The few soundino-s taken within the Arctic Circle leave much 

 to conjecture, but we are tolerably safe in stating that the 

 average depth of the Arctic basin is probably under 1000 

 fathoms. The immense plains of. Northern Asia and America 

 seem to continue beneath the surface of the Arctic Sea, as 

 indicated by the numerous islands which skirt the coasts of these 

 continents, and the greatest depths to be found inside the 

 Arctic Circle are probably confined to the basin situated between 

 Greenland and Norway, Iceland and Spitzbergen. This basin 

 has been explored at different times, amongst others by Lord 

 Dufferin in 1856, who collected a series of valuable temperature 

 observations; by the Swedish ship the "Sophia" in 1868, to 

 whom we are indebted for the only existing deep-sea soundings 

 in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen ; and in the course of 

 August, 1876, by the Norwegian Exploring Expedition on 



