- No. 2. SPITSBERGEN WATERS. 97 



not stated. It seems difficult to understand that the strength of this evidence 

 should be much greater than that of Mr. Harris's evidence on an earlier 

 occasion [1904] when he thought that the current north of Alaska runs 

 in the opposite direction, eastwards, and that this proved land to the north. 

 There are several observations of the drift of the ice to the north of 

 Alaska, by ships that have been enclosed in it, but none of them seem to 

 prove anything with regard to unknown land to the north, neither in the 

 negative nor in the affirmative. They chiefly prove that the drift of the 

 ice in this region much depends on the local winds. 



Mr. Harris also says : "The time required by casks deposited off Point 

 Barrow and off Cape Bathurst to reach their destinations on the north- 

 eastern coast of Iceland and the northern coast of Norway, viz., about five 

 and one-half and eight and one-fourth years, respectively, while not dis- 

 proving, certainly do not favour the hypothesis in question" (i. e. of an unob- 

 structed polar basin). The observed time required by the casks to drift 

 across the North Polar Basin is, however, not longer than might be expec- 

 ted if this basin were unobstructed. We do not know what time was 

 actually required for this drift, as it is impossible to say how long time has 

 elapsed before the casks were found, after they had left the North Polar 

 Basin, between Spitsbergen and Greenland. They may have had a very 

 complicated drift in the Norwegian Sea, where there are several systems 

 of vortex-movements [cf. HELLAND-HANSEN and NANSEN, 1909], and they 

 may have spent a long time there before they were thrown ashore. This 

 may especially have been the case with the cask found on the northern 

 coast of Norway. And then we do not know how long the casks may 

 have been lying on the shore before they were found. 



We know, however, that at least the one cask cannot have required 

 more than five years to drift across the polar basin from Alaska to the 

 opening between Spitsbergen and Greenland, for it cannot have spent less 

 than half a year on its way from this region and till it was found in 

 Iceland. 



But now a drift of five years across the North Polar Basin from 

 Alaska to the opening between Greenland and Spitsbergen is remarkably 

 short for such a cask. Judging from the drift of the Jeanette and the 

 Fram, the writer had calculated that a ship, that worked its way as far as 

 possible into the ice north-east of Bering Strait, would require five years 

 to drift across an unobstructed polar basin, before it could work its way 

 out of the ice again on the Spitsbergen and Greenland side, like the Fram 

 in 1906. 



Vid.-Selsk. Skrifter. I. M.-N. Kl. 1915. No. 2. 7 



