INTR OD L ^CTION 2 5 



current, especially as the wood never appears to have 

 been very long in the sea — at all events, not without 

 having been frozen in the ice. 



" That this driftwood passes south of Franz Josef 

 Land and Spitzbergen is quite as unreasonable a theory 

 as that the ice-floe with the relics from the Jcaniiette 

 drifted by this route. In further disproof of this assump- 

 tion it may be stated that Siberian driftwood is found 

 north of Spitzbergen in the strong southerly current, 

 against which Parry fought in vain. 



" It appears, therefore, that on these grounds also 

 we cannot but admit the existence of a current flow- 

 ing across, or in close proximity to, the Pole. 



" As an interesting fact in this connection, it may 

 also be mentioned that the German botanist Grisebach 

 has shown that the Greenland flora includes a series 

 of Siberian vegetable forms that could scarcely have 

 reached Greenland in any other way than by the help 

 of such a current conveying the seeds. 



" On the drift-ice in Denmark Strait (between Iceland 

 and Greenland) I have made observations which tend to 

 the conclusion that this ice too was of Siberian origin. 

 For instance, I found quantities of mud on it, which 

 seemed to be of Siberian origin, or might possibly have 

 come from North American rivers. It is possible, how- 

 ever, to maintain that this mud originates in the gla- 

 cier rivers that flow from under the ice in the north of 

 Greenland, or in other unknown polar lands ; so that 



