4 POLAR PROBLEMS 



Strait the Siberian continental shelf has a wide extension. It was 

 over this level shelf with shallow sea that the Jeannette (i 879-1881) 

 and the Maud (i 922-1 924) drifted from the region north of Bering 

 Strait to the region northwest of the New Siberian Islands. A num- 

 ber of small islands (Bennett T., Henrietta I., Jeannette I., Zhokhov 

 I., General Vilkitski I.) have been discovered on this shelf to the 

 north and northeast of the New Siberian Islands, and farther east 

 is Wrangel Island. The depths of the sea along the drift routes of 

 the Jeannette and the Maud were mostly less than 60 or 70 meters; 



Fig. I — Section across the Siberian continental shelf north of the Lena delta. Vertical scale exag- 

 gerated 25 times. (From the author's paper, Geogr. Journ., Vol. 30, p. 476). For location, see Fig. 3. 



in some places farthest away from the Siberian coast they increased 

 to more than loo meters and in two cases even to 148 and 156 meters. 

 The breadth of the shelf between the Siberian coast and the drift 

 route of the Jeannette was as much as 630 kilometers, but how far 

 north of this route the edge of the shelf may be situated still remains 

 unknown. 



About midway between the New Siberian Islands and Cape 

 Chelyuskin, in about 77° 24' N. lat., the Russian expedition on board 

 the Taimyr and the Vaigach in 1913 made a sounding of 402 meters 

 without reaching the bottom, and here they were probably at the edge 

 of the continental shelf. Off Northern Land, which was discovered 

 by the same Russian expedition, the shelf seems to be comparatively 

 narrow, and, according to the soundings taken, its surface seems to 

 be uneven and traversed by submarine valleys and fiords. Farther 

 west, towards the Kara Sea and Novaya Zemlya, the shelf is again 

 very broad and even and has very shallow depths. Lonely Island 

 (Ensomhed) and Sverdrup Island are situated on this shelf 220 

 and 150 kilometers from the Siberian coast, but it is unknown how 

 far the shelf extends towards the north in this region, and the exten- 

 sion of Northern Land towards the north beyond 81° N. lat. and 

 towards the west is still unexplored. 



In the sea northeast and north of the northeastern end of Novaya 

 Zemlya and east of Franz Josef Land a number of soundings have 

 been taken by the Russian expeditions in the Yermak (Makarov, 

 1901) and in the St. Anna (Brusilov, 1912-1913), giving depths be- 

 tween 329 and 603 meters (the farthest, to the northeast of Franz 



