INTRODUCTION 51 



lines as will give the ship the greatest power of resistance 

 to the pressure of the ice-floe has not been thoroughly 

 and satisfactorily solved, although hundreds of thousands 

 of dollars have been spent for this end by the seal and 

 whaling companies of Scotland and Newfoundland." As 

 an authority he quotes Melville, and says " every Arctic 

 navigator of experience agrees with Melville's dictuni 

 that even if built solid a vessel could not withstand the 

 ice-pressure of the heavy polar pack." To my assertion 

 that the ice along the " Siberian coast is comparatively 

 thin, 7 to 10 feet," he again quotes Melville, who speaks 

 of ice " 50 feet high, etc." (something we did not dis- 

 cover, by-the-way, during the whole of our voyage). 



After giving still more conclusive proofs that the 

 Fram must inevitably go to the bottom as soon as it 

 should be exposed to the pressure of the ice, he goes on 

 to refer to the impossibility of drifting in the ice with 

 boats. And he concludes his article with the remark 

 that " Arctic exploration is sufficiently credited with 

 rashness and danger in its legitimate and sanctioned 

 methods, without bearing the burden of Dr. Nansen s 

 illogical scheme of self-destruction." 



From an article Greely wrote after our return home, 

 in Harpers Weekly for September 19th, 1896, he 

 appears to have come to the conclusion that the 

 Jeannette relics were genuine and that the assump- 

 tion of their drift may have been correct, mentioning 

 " Melville, Dall, and others " as not believing in them. 



