THE ARCTIC PACK 131 



moving southward in the straits of western Greenland [Robeson Chan- 

 nel to Smith Sound] has its origin in the region of the Arctic Pack. 

 This region closely approaches the northern coast of Greenland and 

 Grant Land, but it is not known whether these currents are in any 

 way connected with the weak and changeable currents flowing north- 

 ward out of Bering Strait. 



The drift tracks of the Jeannette and Fram afford no conclusive 

 proof of the existence of a definite current in the region of the Arctic 

 Pack through which they passed. They rather justify the belief that 

 the motion of the ice may be the result of the action of the winds pre- 

 vailing in that region during a given period. It seems probable 

 that winds are the cause of the general western direction of the motion 

 of the Arctic Pack to the north of the Asiatic continent — a motion that 

 is very irregular and complicated in detail but is maintained in that 

 direction as a result of the winds. The drift of the Jeannette and 

 of the Fram showed that the speed and direction of this motion change 

 all the time, especially near the border of the pack; and this will prob- 

 ably be the experience, during the first years of their drift, of any 

 ships that get into the pack. As we go from the border into the in- 

 terior of the pack the motion becomes faster and the direction more 

 definite. 



Beginning at a meridian passing to the east of Spitsbergen the 

 motion of the pack shows a tendency to deviate to the south in the 

 direction of the Greenland Sea. North of Greenland according to 

 Peary's explorations the motion of the pack has a southerly tendency, 

 at least up to about latitude 84°, Peary having observed in 1900 a 

 southward motion of the pack in latitude 83° 50' N. under the in- 

 fluence of the East Greenland Current. To the north of Grant Land, 

 in latitude 84° I'J}^' N., Peary speaks in 1902 of an eastward motion of 

 ice fields.^ Peary's observations of the motion of the pack, however, 

 have the character of separate, occasional observations which in no 

 way exclude the possibility, nay, even the predominance of a west- 

 ward motion of the pack. We can only say with certainty that off 

 Grant Land and farther to the west the motion of the pack has a south- 

 ern tendency and that its ice masses approach the shores of the Parry 

 Archipelago and fill up Beaufort Sea, leaving only a free narrow zone 

 close to shore for navigation. This part of the Arctic Ocean seems to 

 have a very indefinite and weak motion, perhaps in the same general 

 westerly direction, and it represents the region of maximum shock and 

 pressure of the ice owing to the direction of the drift toward the shore. 



The region of the Arctic Pack is, as above mentioned, divided into 

 two halves by the line Point Barrow-Crown Prince Rudolf Island. 



8 Commander R. E. Peary, U. S. N.: Field Work of the Peary Arctic Club, 1 898-1902. [Mimeo- 

 graphed report, New York, 1903; published under the title "Report of R. E. Peary, C. E., U. S. N., 

 on Work Done in the Arctic in 1898-1902" in Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc, Vol. 35, 1903, PP- 496-534. 

 also as Chapter 15 of Peary's "Nearest the Pole," New York, 1907.] 



