14 



POLAR PROBLEMS 



be considered as a desert in the ocean, and no mammal or man can 

 find sufficient food there. During our Fram expedition across that 

 sea we found many species, especially of small crustaceans, but the 

 fauna was so extremely poor in number of specimens that our tow- 

 nets might hang out for several days and, although we might drift 

 along at a good speed, there was extremely little in them when they 

 were hauled up. The result of these peculiar conditions seems to be 

 that the substances in the sea water generally used to sustain plants, 



BATHYMETRIC MAP 



ARCTIC™BASIN 



FWdtJof Nanaen 



Fig. 6 — Map showing, in black, the unexplored areas in the Arctic Basin, compiled by N. A. Transehe 

 of the American Geographical Society's staff. Scale, i : 65,000,000. Areas that were within the mathe- 

 matical horizon of visibility from sledge, ship's masthead, or aircraft, as the case may be, are assumed 

 to be known. As fog has not been taken into account in the computation the map slightly exaggerates 

 the size of the known areas. The base is the same as that of Plate I opposite, and the two maps are 

 therefore directly comparable. 



and through them the animal life, are to a great extent stored in the 

 sea water of this ice-covered sea, as there are so extremely few plants 

 to use them. But as soon as this water with these accumulated riches 

 is freed of the ice, near the outskirts of the polar sea, and is exposed 

 to the sunlight in the spring and summer, an unusually rich plant and 

 animal plankton is developed and flourishes. It. would be of much 

 value for the understanding of the biology of the ocean to study in 

 detail the biological conditions in various parts of the North Polar 

 Sea. 



