96 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. KI. 



During his sledge-expedition from Greenland to the North Pole, Peary 

 found, however, no land in that region, and near the Pole he found a 

 deep sea. Unless we assume that there may be land somewhere between 

 the tracks of Peary and the Fram, there cannot be any land (or shallow 

 sea) in this region north of the Fram's track so near that it could have 

 had an appreciable effect upon the direction of the drift of the ice. It is 

 then a question whether land or shallow sea might exist to the north of 

 the Fram's track farther east. 



Mr. Rollin A. Harris has by a careful study of the tidal observations 

 on the coasts of the North Polar Sea [191 1] come to the conclusion that 

 there must be an extensive land or a shallow sea in the still unknown 

 region of the North Polar Sea, north of Alaska and the American Arctic 

 archipelago. 



The writer does not feel competent to decide whether Mr. Harri's 

 arguments are based upon perfectly sound principles; Mr. Harris operates, 

 however, with many quantities, that owing to the meagerness of observa- 

 tions could not be exactl}' computed, and may therefor be considered as 

 more or less uncertain, as Mr. Harris himself states. The writer does not 

 therefore think that too much faith ougth to be placed in his conclusions. 

 Although the observations of the latest expeditions do not actually disprove 

 the correctnes of Mr. Harris views as to a hypothetical land north of Alaska, 

 west of Bank Land, and North of Axel Heiberg Land (Crocker Land?), 

 they show at any rate that such lands cannot be so near the known coasts 

 as originally assumed by Mr. Harris. 



What we learn as to the tidal wave in the North Polar Basin from 

 our current-measurements and the occurrence of ice-pressures during the 

 Fram-Expedition (see above pp. 83 et seq.) may warn us that there are 

 possibly irregularities in the high-waters etc., and these would have to be 

 studied before any reliable conclusions as to unknown land in the north 

 could be based upon the tidal observations. 



The other arguments, outside his tidal speculations, advanced by 

 Mr. Harris in favour of his hypothetical land in the north, can hardly be 

 said to carr}^ much weight. 



He says: "The decided westward drift observed by Mikkelsen and 

 Leffingwell oft' the northern coast of Alaska is alone strong evidence 

 against Nansen's hypothesis of an unobstructed polar basin". ^ Why so is 



1 Mr. Harris is mistaken in his views of what is "Nansen's hypothesis". The writer's paper 

 of 1907, which Harris quotes, shows that the writer does not beheve in the probabihty 

 of an "unobstructed polar basin" in the sense Mr. Harris mentions. On the contrary 

 the writer thought "the possibility of a wide extension of the continental shelf from 

 the American side, etc., into the Unknown North, was not excluded, and he thought 

 that "there may be unknown lands on this shelf, etc. 



