CONCLUSION 



Bv Dr. Nansen 



What, then, are the results of the Norwegian Polar Expedi- 

 tion ? This is a question which the reader might fairly expect 

 to find answered here; but the scientific observations brought 

 back are so varied and voluminous that it will be some time 

 yet before they can be dealt with by specialists and before any 

 general estimate of their significance can be formed. It will, 

 therefore, be necessary to publish these results in separate 

 scientific publications ; and if I now attempted to give an idea 

 of them, it would necessarily be imperfect, and might easily 

 prove misleading. I shall, therefore, confine myself to pointing 

 out a few of their more important features. 



In the first place, we have demonstrated that the sea in the 

 immediate neighborhood of the Pole, and in which, in my 

 opinion, the Pole itself in all probability lies, is a deep basin, not 

 a shallow one, containing many expanses of land and islands, as 

 people were formerly inclined to assume. It is certainly a con- 

 tinuation of the deep channel which extends from the Atlantic 

 Ocean northward between Spitzbergen and Greenland. The 

 extent of this deep sea is a question which it is not at present 

 easy to answer ; but we at least know that it extends a long way 

 north of Franz Josef Land, and eastward right to the New 

 Siberian Islands. I believe that it extends still farther east, as, 

 I think, may be inferred from the fact that the more the 

 Jcaiuicttc expedition drifted north, the greater depth of sea did 

 they find. For various reasons, I am led to believe that in a 

 northerly direction also this deep sea is of considerable extent. 

 In the first place, nothing was observed, either during the drift 



