DRIFT-WOOD 85 



While most of the drift-wood is brought by the 

 Polar current from the Siberian coast, some has 

 been traced to Norwegian sources, and pieces of 

 North American Pines and other trees have also 

 been recognised. Currents from the south also 

 transport plants to the Arctic regions as is shown 

 by the occasional discovery of seeds of tropical 

 plants on the West Greenland coast. 



It was the discovery of pieces of wreckage from 

 the American ship, the ' Jeanette,' which foundered 

 north of the New Siberian Island in 1881 on the 

 south-west coast of Greenland, and the study of 

 the distribution of Siberian drift-wood that first 

 led Nansen 1 , and more recently other explorers, to 

 trust to the motive power of currents as the chief 

 factor in Arctic expeditions. 



The logs of drift-wood stranded on a Green- 

 land beach after a long sea voyage from their 

 native habitat suggest the possibility that some at 

 least of the stout petrified stems, which were found 

 among the boulders in the beds of the glacial 

 streams washed out of the sandstones on the hill- 

 sides, might in their day have been carried far 

 from home, to be entombed with the waifs and 

 strays of a contemporary Greenland flora to which 

 they did not belong. 



From Hare Island we visited Upernivik Island 

 (lat. 71 N.), on the north side of Umanak Fjord. 

 On the south coast there is a small Settlement at 

 the foot of the hills commanding a view that it 

 would be difficult to surpass for grandeur and 



1 Farthest North, 1897 (Fram Expedition, 1893-6). 



