THE STEFANSSON EXPEDITION 
within forty-five miles of Banks Land 
a violent southeasterly gale, of twelve 
days duration, sent the party seaward 
to a point one hundred and five miles 
from shore. Stefansson took matters 
philosophically, as he was on a floe over 
one hundred feet thick. Devoting ener- 
gies to hunting the men accumulated 
two tons of meat against emergencies. 
It was not until June 26, that they set 
foot on land sixty miles south of Cape 
Albert. For ninety-six days they had 
lived on the moving ice-pack. 
They summered on Banks Land, 
killing thirty-nine caribou and _ storing 
up supplies against any mischance. 
Despairing of the arrival of either of 
their two ships, they started south in 
September with packs, and found the 
““Mary Sachs” already in winter quar- 
ters, although as Stefansson reports “the 
sea was absolutely clear of ice.’ Neither 
of his ships obeyed orders and Stefans- 
son’s safety was the result of his own 
efforts — the excuse being that they 
thought he had perished. As Stefansson 
had been absent seventeen months there 
were some grounds for such belief. 
Accidents prevented Stefansson taking 
the field again effectively until April 5, 
1915. Then he was delayed by a south- 
westerly drift of twenty-four miles in 
his effort to explore the sea to the north- 
west of Banks Land, and was forced to 
turn back from 76° 40’ N. latitude, about 
seventy-five miles offshore. After chart- 
ing the unknown parts of the north coast 
of Prince Patrick Island the party dis- 
covered in June a new land, whereon 
they landed on the nineteenth. As far as 
seen, the land covers an area of about five 
thousand square miles, is rugged and 
mountainous, and its southern shore 
trends from west by north to east by 
south. About one hundred miles of 
coast were covered during three days of 
travel. The only point astronomically 
determined was in 77° 43’ N. latitude, 
341 
115° 43’ W. longitude. It is interesting 
to note that this land is but some fifty 
miles distant from the farthest point 
reached on Prince Patrick Island by 
McClintock in 1853. 
Stefansson considers that the new 
land is one of considerable extent. It is 
situated about one hundred miles to the 
west. of the Ringnes Land, discovered 
by the Sverdrup expedition in 1901. 
It thus extends some ten degrees of 
longitude to the westward of that polar 
archipelago (west of northern Green- 
land), fringing the great frozen Arctic 
Ocean, of which the most easterly island 
is Grinnell Land; the most westerly 
known is the new land of Stefansson. 
It is most probable that Stefansson’s 
Land extends far westward, or north- 
westward, in the shape of an island with 
probably a low-lying area of large size 
whereon are formed the great floe-bergs 
of which Stefansson saw many in the 
course of his sledge trip over Beaufort 
Sea in 1914. It is worthy of note that in 
all his periods of danger and of distress 
Stefansson kept up his observations. 
His soundings are of special value as 
indications of land and sea distribution. 
While the Continental Shelf of eastern 
Alaska is about seventy miles offshore, 
Stefansson’s soundings prove that it 
closely fringes the west coast of Banks 
Land. While this is not conclusive, yet 
it apparently indicates that the unknown 
lands lie rather to the northwest of Banks 
Land and Prince Patrick Island. 
In any event there is reason soon 
to expect definite information on this 
point, as Stefansson sailed from Herschel 
Island August 23, and northward from 
Cape Kellett September 3 to carry on 
further explorations. Meanwhile the 
world awaits his further report, with 
confidence that it will materially reduce 
the vast area of unknown regions which 
has hitherto disfigured the charts of the 
North-polar Circle. 
