DISCOVERY 



127 



The Maud, imprisoned in the drifting pack-ice which 

 sets with the current towards Greenland and Spits- 

 bergen, will probably cross the heart of the polar basin, 

 advancing approximately along the meridian of i8o°. 

 But between that longitude and the Parry Islands there 

 remains a vast area north of about lat. 74° N. that has 

 never been entered, unless perhaps some unrecorded 

 American whaler has seen his chance in an open season 

 and pushed north. Roughly speaking, this may be 

 termed the Beaufort Sea, although that name is more 



westward and northward in the southern part of this 

 area of the Arctic Ocean until crushed in the ice. (It 

 must be remembered that neither was built of sufficient 

 strength to withstand heavy ice-pressure.) Stefansson, 

 in crossing the south-eastern end of the Beaufort Sea, 

 found a continuous south-westerly drift. Other evidence 

 is in favour of an easterly set which packs the ice against 

 the Parry Islands, Grant Land and Greenland. More 

 than one explorer has penetrated 100 miles or more into 

 this region from the land to the south or cast, but 



SKETCH JL\P OF THE POL.\R REGIONS. 

 Series of crosses mark drift of ice-boxmd ships : single crosses indicate furthest advances into unexplored 

 area of Arctic Ocean between .\laska and the North Pole. The probable course of Amundsen's drift is shown. 



strictly applicable only to its south-eastern part. This 

 will prove a difficult region to explore. Stefansson 

 maintains that what he calls the pole of inaccessibility 

 in the north lies in lat. 83° 50' N., long. 160° W., that 

 is, 370 nautical miles from the geographical pole on 

 the meridian which passes about 80 miles west of 

 Alaska's most northerly cape. The drift tactics of 

 Nansen and Amundsen might be tried, but with less 

 hope of success than farther west, at least until more 

 is known of the currents. More than one whaler caught 

 in the ice has disappeared in this sea never to be heard 

 of again. De Long's Jeannette in 1881 and Bartlett's 

 Karluk, the latter destined in 1914 to explore this sea 

 as part of the Stefansson expedition, both drifted 



there is space for large islands to be hidden in this 

 unknown sea. What is the likelihood of land existing 

 there ? On the whole verj' little. The few soundings 

 taken north of Bering Strait and Alaska are in favour 

 of a narrow continental shelf and a sea floor falling 

 rapidly to the great depths of the Arctic Ocean, al- 

 though west of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago the 

 evidence is less conclusive. Evidence deduced from the 

 drift of the pack-ice and the course of the tides is also 

 opposed to the existence of land in this area. Keenan 

 Land, vaguely reported from whaling sources in the 

 seventies of last century, was practically disproved by 

 Storkersen's sledge journey from the coast of Alaska 

 to lat. 73° 58' N., long. 147° 50' W. in 1918, and Crocker 



