38 FARTHEST NORTH 



surmise of a drift right across the Polar Sea was correct. 

 In a lecture delivered before the Geographical Society in 

 Christiania, on September 28, 1892, I alluded to some of 

 these inquiries.*' I laid stress on the fact that on con- 

 sidering the thickness and extent of the drift-ice in the 

 seas on both sides of the Pole, one cannot but be struck 

 by the fact that while the ice on the Asiatic side, north 

 of the Siberian coast, is comparatively thin (the ice in 

 which the Jeamictte drifted was, as a rule, not more than 

 from 7 to 10 feet thick), that on the other side, which 

 comes driftino; from the north in the sea between Green- 

 land and Spitzbergen, is remarkably massive, and this, 

 notwithstanding that the sea north of Siberia is one of 

 the coldest tracts on the earth. This, I suggested, could 

 be explained only on the assumption that the ice is con- 

 stantly drifting from the Siberian coast, and that, while 

 passing through the unknown and cold sea there is time 

 for it to attain its enormous thickness, partly by freezing, 

 partly by the constant packing that takes place as the 

 floes screw themselves to2:ether. 



I further mentioned in the same lecture that the mud 

 found on this drift-ice seemiCd to point to a Siberian 

 origin. I did not at the time attach great importance 

 to this fact, but on a further examination of the deposits 

 I had collected during my Greenland expedition it ap- 

 peared that it could scarcely come from anywhere else 



* See the Society's Annual, III., 1892, p. 91. 



