1905. Nq. 2. SPITSBERGEN WATERS. 95 



be. we would expect it to be deflected towards the right till it met with 

 resistance near the edge of the continental shelf or against land, and then 

 it would follow along the shelf or the land. In a wide North Polar Basin 

 we wold thus get a cyclonic movement of the currents. 



A current deviating much to the left of the average direction of the 

 Fram's drift, as our observations might seem to indicate [see 1902, pp. 358 

 et seq\ cannot, however, follow the direction of any land or of any edge 

 of a continental shelf to the north, for if the edge of the shelf (or land) 

 had such a direction, the Fram would have approached it rapidly, and 

 must have met with it at last; but she was the whole time drifting in a 

 deep sea. Moreover a current with such a direction would be directed 

 towards the edge oi the continental shelf on the other side of the basin, 

 north of Franz Joseph Land and Spitsbergen, and that is not probable. 



It seems therefore hardly possible that the permanent surface-current 

 of the North Polar Basin along the track of the Fram. may have had 

 such a direction as the wTiter previously 1902] thought was proved by the 

 obser\-ations of the expedition. 



The fact that the average direction of the whole drift of the Fram 

 did not deviate to the right of the resultant of the wind, but instead slightly 

 to the left, might therefore more simply be explained by the existence of 

 land, or at least shallow sea, with the edge of the continental shelf, to 

 the north of the Fram's track. In this namer there might have been 

 ofiFered resistance to the drift of the ice in that direction. As has elsewhere 

 been pointed out, even a continental shelf which does not rise to the sea - 

 surlace. offers resistance to sea-currents and to the drift of the ice. Not 

 considering the periodical tidal currents, there is comparatively little motion 

 of the water and ice over the shelves and the banks of the sea, the cur- 

 rents will greati}' follow their edges and side-slopes. 



The existence of a shallow sea, perhaps even with land, somewhere 

 to the north of the Fram's track, might thus seem probable. If the drift 

 of the Jeanette be also taken into consideration, the probabilit}- of such 

 land or shallow sea to the north might seem to be strengthened; for if we 

 assume the deep North Polar Basin to have a wide or roundish shape, 

 bounded bv the Siberian coast and the known American Arctic archipelago, 

 it would indeed be difficult to explain why the ice is carried in an anti- 

 cyclonic direction westwards along the Siberian side of this basin. The 

 efifect of the Earth's rotation would then seem to make it necessary that 

 the ice should be carried, by wind as well as by current, along the American 

 side of the basin. 



