132 POLAR PROBLEMS 



One half faces the Asiatic continent, and the other for the most part 

 faces the American continent. In the first half the drift of the pack 

 seems to have a northwestern direction away from the coast. In the 

 second half the motion of the ice has been too little studied, and we 

 cannot speak about it definitely. At all events, the motion of the 

 Arctic Pack in this latter region has a clear tendency to movement 

 south towards the shores of the American Arctic Archipelago, while 

 perhaps at the same time maintaining a general western direction. 



The motion of the ice on the Asiatic side seems to depend on the 

 winds, being in close connection with the distribution of the atmos- 

 pheric pressure in Siberia. 



During most of the year the great barometric high-pressure area 

 of northeastern Asia is the fundamental factor controlling the atmos- 

 pheric processes of the adjacent regions. A low-pressure area occurs 

 in the Greenland Sea approximately at the same time. These two 

 areas of high and low pressure determine the direction of the motion 

 of the atmosphere in winter, producing in the northern part of the 

 Asiatic continent and the adjacent region of the Arctic Ocean southern, 

 southeastern, eastern, and finally, north of Spitsbergen, northeastern 

 winds. It is these winds that cause the ice to drift toward the north- 

 west, a direction that gradually changes to west north of Franz Josef 

 Land and southwest north of Spitsbergen. The changes of the wind 

 influence the direction of the drift, which at a given moment may have 

 any direction, but the resultant force of all these partial motions will 

 be a northwestern movement, determined by the flow of air from the 

 area of high pressure to the area of low pressure. 



Lieutenant Wrangel's observations in Nizhne-Kolymsk, Jiirgens' 

 expedition to the mouth of the Lena River ,^ and also observations of 

 the Russian Polar Expedition of 1 900-1 903 show the predominance of 

 southeastern w^nds during autumn and winter. 



The decrease of pressure over the Asiatic continent in summer 

 often produces winds from the northern half of the compass near the 

 Siberian coast. These winds fray out the edge of the pack and force 

 the ice masses toward the south into the northern parts of the mar- 

 ginal seas of the Arctic Ocean. ^° North of Greenland the motion of 

 the ice in winter, besides being influenced by north and northeast 

 winds, is affected by the powerful flow of the East Greenland Current. 

 What causes this current is still unknown. There may be some rela- 

 tionship with the Gulf Stream, whose warm water was found by Nan- 

 sen in the Asiatic region of the Arctic Ocean at great depths, and the 

 East Greenland Current may represent the draining off of the" waters 



' To establish one of the international circumpolar stations (Sagastyr) sponsored by Russia. — 

 Transl. Note. 



'" It is worth noting that the Jeannette stayed almost in the same position in latitude 74° N. and 

 longitude 180° from April to November, 1880, i.e. approximately during the absence of the area of 

 high pressure in northeastern Asia. 



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