THE ARCTIC PACK 1 29 



tenant De Long and that of the Fram under Sverdrup's command, 

 give a fairly clear conception of the nature and character of the ice in 

 this region. The limits of the Arctic Pack are in general subject to 

 considerable fluctuation, depending upon the configuration of the 

 coasts and the direction of the winds and currents. 



There is no doubt that, under the influence of these factors, the 

 area of the pack is considerably expanded to the south, beyond the 

 above-mentioned limits, in which direction its ice masses are con- 

 tinually being driven off. This fringe of ice is what I have called above 

 "the frontier region of the Arctic Pack," which is sometimes acces- 

 sible to navigation, owing to the more open condition of the ice. The 

 perimeter of the above-mentioned ellipse should be taken rather as 

 the innermost limit of the Arctic Pack, as the ice is constantly descend- 

 ing upon the coasts of the Parry Islands; filling Beaufort Sea in its 

 approach to the coasts of Banks Island and Alaska; projecting into 

 the northern part of the Yukaglr Sea; approaching close to the northern 

 shores of the New Siberian Islands; spreading into the Siberian Sea, 

 which is open from the north; coming close to Cape Chelyuskin; at- 

 taining the northern limit of the Kara Sea ; and going even far south of 

 Franz Josef Land, perhaps as far as Cape Zhelanie in Novaya Zemlya. 

 The ice fields from this region fill the space between Franz Josef Land 

 and Spitsbergen and are carried out by a powerful current into the 

 Greenland Sea, which is the area into which the greater part of the 

 mass of the Arctic Pack discharges. 



The Kara and Siberian Seas and other waters contiguous to the 

 Arctic Ocean produce new masses of ice every year, some of which 

 melt away during the summer, while others become telescoped and 

 take on the form of many-years-old ice; to these are added the frag- 

 ments of the Arctic Pack coming down from the north. This mixed 

 ice is in part carried off again to the north and in part remains where 

 it is, forming the local pack of that part of the sea; and it does not 

 partake in the motion of the body of the Arctic Pack itself but is 

 shifted to and fro by the local winds and currents. 



The Motion of the Arctic Pack 



There are so few data about the motion of the Arctic Pack that 

 every suggested explanation has the character of an hypothesis, with 

 a greater or less approximation to the truth. Examining the region of 

 the Arctic Pack within the limits of the above-mentioned elliptic 

 curve, we see that, in the part of the ellipse facing the Siberian coast, 

 the drifts of the Jeannette and Fram would seem to coincide with the 

 direction of its periphery, approximately paralleling it between longi- 

 tudes 175° W. and 20° E. This parallelism is especially evident in the 

 direction of the Jeannette drift in the stretch between Herald Island 



