INTR OD UCTION 1 5 



expeditions of former years, I go on to say : " The 

 results of these numerous attempts, as I have pointed 

 out, seem somewhat discouraging. They appear to 

 show plainly enough that it is impossible to sail to the 

 Pole by any route whatever; for everywhere the ice has 

 proved an impenetrable barrier, and has stayed the 

 progress of invaders on the threshold of the unknown 

 regions. 



" To drasf boats over the uneven drift-ice, which more- 

 over is constantly moving under the influence of the cur- 

 rent and wind, is an equally great difficulty. The ice 

 lays such obstacles in the way that any one who has ever 

 attempted to traverse it will not hesitate to declare it 

 well-nigh impossible to advance in this manner with 

 the equipment and provisions requisite for such an 

 •undertaking." 



Had we been able to advance over land, I said, that 

 would have been the most certain route ; in that case 

 the Pole could have been reached " in one summer by 

 Norwegian snow-shoe runners." But there is every 

 reason to doubt the existence of any such land. Green- 

 land, I considered, did not extend farther than the most 

 northerly known point of its west coast. " It is not 

 probable that Franz Josef Land reaches to the Pole ; 

 from all we can learn it forms a group of islands separated 

 from each other by deep sounds, and it appears im- 

 probable that any large continuous track of land is to be 

 found there. 



