358 PETTERSSON, SIBERIAN S E A. 



trätes into the Kära and Siberian Sea or not, has been much 

 debated. Pe term ann and Middendorff^ are prone to assert 

 that the warm water of the Gulf-stream is spread beyond 

 Novaya Zemlya and the Taimur peninsula to the longitudes 

 of Cape Yakan and even to Behring strait. The remarkabl}'^ 

 mild climate even in winter of the northern parts of these 

 countries compared to the rest of the North-Asiatic continent 

 makes this hj^^pothesis by no means unacceptable. 



Hedenström- during his voyage to the Siberian Islands, 

 and Wrangel,- on his sledging expeditions on the frozen sea 

 found, that the sea-ice became thinner and more corroded, 

 the more the}^ proceeded northward, until it finally gave way 

 to open water »the polynia» extending northward bej^ond 

 eyesight. — Although a similar phenomenon has been observed 

 occasionally almost everywhere along the coast of the arctic 

 sea in winter [f. ex. in Smith' s Sound, in Austria Sound at 

 Franz Joseph Land, at Spitzbergen, Novaya Zemlya etc. . .] and 

 has ordinarily been found to be limited to short spaces of the 

 ocean, the »polynia» is often regarded as the southern part 

 of a polar sea, unfrozen even in winter, which is kept open ^ 

 by a branch of the Gulf-stream undermining the arctic drift- 

 ice current etc. . . 



Lately Lieutenant Hovgaard, one of the members of the 

 Vega-expedition, has propounded the hypothesis of the existence 

 of two polar continents north of Siberia, separated from each 

 other by a sound at the longitude of Cape Tcheljuskin, opening 

 from the Siberian Sea straightway into the polar basin. 



I fear that the results of the Vega-expedition will not 

 contribute much to solve the m3^ster3^ of these questions. We 

 can not reasonably expect, that the observations of a single 

 expedition will reveal to us all the secrets of the immense 

 ocean, which borders on the Siberian coast. 



As for the polar continents north of Siberia, there is 

 scarcely to be found anything in the hydrographic observa- 

 tions of the Vega, which could tend to corroborate the hypo- 

 thesis of Mr. Hovgaard. According to his theory the Franz 

 Joseph archipelago would extend eastward to the longitude 

 of Cape Tcheljuskin and be connected with the Taimur and 

 Yalmal peninsulte by a submarine plateau. Consequently the 



* Middendorff: Der Golfström östlich vom Nordkap. Geogr. Mitth. 1871. 



2 Wrangel: Eeise längs der Nordkiiste von .Sibirien see also: Erman's 

 »Russisches Arcliiv», vol. XXIV, 1865. 



3 Petermann: Der Golfström, Geogr. Mitth. 1870, page 229—230. 



