1 8 FARTHEST NORTH 



" In America, when it was reported that these articles 

 had been found, people were very sceptical, and doubts of 

 their genuineness were expressed in the American news- 

 papers. The facts, however, can scarcely be sheer in- 

 ventions ; and it may therefore be safely assumed that 

 an ice-floe bearing these articles from the Jcannette had 

 drifted from the place where it sank to Julianehaab. 



" By what route did this ice-floe reach the west coast 

 of Greenland ? 



" Professor Mohn, in a lecture before the Scientific 

 Society of Christiania, in November, 1S94, showed that it 

 could have come by no other way than across the Pole.* 



" It cannot possibly have come through Smith Sound, 

 as the current there passes along the western side of 

 Baffin's Bay, and it would thus have been conveyed to 

 Baffin's Land or Labrador, and not to the west coast of 

 Greenland. The current flows along this coast in a 

 northerly direction, and is a continuation of the Green- 

 land polar current, which comes along the east coast of 



* Mr. Lytzen, of Julianehaab, afterwards contributed an article to the 

 Geografisk Tidsskrift (8th Vol., 1885-86, pp. 49-51, Copenhagen), in which 

 he expressed himself, so far at least as I understand him, in the same sense, 

 and, remarkably enough, suggested that this circumstance might possibly 

 be found to have an important bearing on Arctic exploration. He says: 

 " It will therefore be seen that polar explorers who seek to advance tow- 

 ards the Pole from the Siberian Sea will probably at one place or another 

 be hemmed in by the ice, but these masses of ice will be carried by the 

 current along the Greenland coast. It is not, therefore, altogether impos- 

 sible that, if the ship of such an expedition is able to survive the pressure 

 of the masses of ice for any length of time, it will arrive safely at South 

 Greenland ; but in that case it must be prepared to spend several years 

 on the wav." 



