POLAR PROBLEMS 



angle of deviation was considerable.^ But, nevertheless, the direc- 

 tion of the resultant of the whole drift of the Fram nearly coincided 

 with the direction of the wind resultant foV the same period. This 

 fact might seem to indicate that the movements of the ice met with 

 greater resistance towards the north and northeast than towards 

 the west, southwest, and south. Such a resistance to the movements 

 of the ice would be offered by a land, or a shelf 

 with shallow sea, to the right, i. e. to the north, 

 of the Fram's drift route; but the existence of 

 such a land or shallow sea in this neighborhood 

 is highly improbable. Besides the Karluk, the 

 Jeannette and the Maud drifted in a similar 

 westward and anticyclonic direction over a very 

 shallow sea to the north of Bering Strait and 

 eastern Siberia, and they cannot have had any 

 extensive land in their vicinity to the north; 

 on the contrary, the tidal phenomena seem to 

 prove that they had a deep sea to the north 

 and not very far off.^" The anticyclonic drift of 

 the ice cannot, therefore, be assumed to prove 

 the existence of land masses to the north, above 

 or below the sea surface, in these regions. 



There is naturally the possibility that the 

 heavy ice masses in the interior parts of the 

 North Polar Sea, where new ice is continually 

 formed on any open water lanes, may have a 

 tendency to spread southward towards the 

 more open sea near the coasts of Siberia and 

 towards the opening between Spitsbergen and 

 Greenland. Thus a resistance against a north- 

 erly drift of the ice may arise, and the ice may 

 be carried in a more westerly direction. Whether this is sufficient to 

 explain the apparent anticyclonic movement of the drift may, how- 

 ever, be doubtful. It has naturally to be taken into consideration 

 that the direction of the drift of the ice is not merely dependent on 

 the local winds and forces but also on the movements of the ice in the 

 regions to the north, which to a great extent are caused by the winds 

 in these regions, and there is a possibility that these winds have on 

 the average a tendency to be anticyclonic. 



It may also be mentioned that the warmer and Salter water under- 

 lying the cold surface layer of the North Polar Sea flows into the 

 Arctic Basin northwest of Spitsbergen and probably flows eastwards 



8 Cf. Fridtjof Nansen: The Oceanography of the North Polar Basin (The Norwegian North 

 Polar Expedition 1893-1896: Scientific Results, Vol. 3, No. 9, Christiania, 1902), pp. 365 ff. 



1° This was written before Wilkins' sounding of S440 meters (see p. 396 and PI. I) and its implica- 

 tion. — Edit. Note. 



Fig. 3 — Map indicating the 

 location of the sections 

 shown in Figs, i (s on this 

 key), 2 (12), 4(C), and s (B). 



