Ixvi. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



disappearance of animal life, as also the structure of ice 

 which was observed by Nansen as they reached the highest 

 latitudes, lead to the supposition that in all probability the 

 sea round the North Pole is a deep sea covered all the year 

 round with a packed drifting ice. The temperature in this 

 circumpolar ice-sea to a depth of 100 fathoms was found every- 

 where below freezing point; but below 100 fathoms the tempera- 

 ture was a little above freezing point, and as far as can be 

 ascertained, this temperature extends to the bottom. The 

 discovery of a deep sea containing water whose temperature 

 is above freezing point in the vicinity of the North Pole 

 promises to explain much of the life of the globe differently from 

 what has been hitherto considered as the right explanation. 

 Although the sounding apparatus of the Fram was far from being 

 able to measure depths of 2,000 fathoms, Nansen originated 

 means for doing so. He made a sounding apparatus out of iron 

 wire taken from an iron cable. As far as can be judged the only 

 way in which warm water can enter the North Pole basin is that 

 it should come from the current of warm water, which the North 

 Pole expedition found in 1878 off the western coast of Spitzbergen. 

 Thus we have warm water from the warm current of the North 

 Atlantic, which has ice-cold water beneath it. This warm water, 

 being salt, has a greater density when it cools down, and the 

 fresh water pours into the North Pole basin by the great 

 rivers of Siberia and of North America. That the temperature 

 does not sink below freezing point is one of the most wonderful 

 phenomena which the expedition could have discovered for both 

 the meteorologist and the hydrographist. The sledge journey of 

 Nansen and Johansen has ascertained that between Franz Joseph 

 Land and latitude 86 14' there is a sea mostly covered with 

 ice, but no land. Of the geographical results there is the discovery 

 of a new island in the northern part of the Kara Sea and several 

 new islands off the coast of Siberia, which bears testimony to 

 its having been under an ice-sheet. Doubtless a biologist, such as 

 Nansen, had many opportunities for making observations which are 



