392 



NATURE 



[August 27, 1896 



work to the crystalline constituents' of the rock in which it 

 occurs." 



I should not have referred to the matter had not the date of 

 publication in Naturk been quoted in a way that suggests a 

 sort of challenge. It seems only fair to point out that my paper 

 was read on March 19, 1895, ^"c' 'hat the conclusion — that the 

 material was " an altered basic glass" — was published in two 

 places in the IrisJi Naturalist on May I, 1895. The full paper 

 appeared on July I, 1895. The two investigations, to some 

 extent supplementing one another, aflbrd certainly a curious 

 case of parallelism. Grenvii.le A.J. COLE. 



Royal College of Science for Ireland, August 20. 



Foreign Snails in the West Indies. 



Two large living specimens of StciioQ'ra {Riimiiia) decoUala, 

 Linn., were recently found in the garden of Dr. W. J. Branch 

 in St. Kitts Though familiar with the land shells of the island, 

 having lived and collected there for many years. Dr. Branch had 

 never come across this shell before. 



These had probably been introduced accidentally as young or 

 eggs among European plants. Tryon states that ihe snail is 

 naturalised in Charleston, South Carolina. It seems to have 

 thrived in our garden, which is very tropical, but we cannot say 

 yet that it is naturalised. 



We have tried the introduction of foreign snails into this 

 island. Helix (Dcntellaria) josephiiui, Fer. , from Barbados, 

 did well in a garden, but since we changed our residence it 

 seems to have disappeared. Biilimus (Boms) obloiigiis. Mull., 

 introduced a few years ago, also from Barbados, thrives and 

 multiplies, but has not, so far, gone beyond the garden. It would 

 seem, then, that the chances are against the S/eno^'ra becoming 

 fixed in St. Kitts. The fact of its chance occurrence is, however, 

 worth recording. C. W. Branch. 



St. Kitts, W. I., August 2. 



THE ARCTIC RECORD OF iSg6. 

 '"PHE triumphal progress of Dr. Nansen and his com- 

 •*■ panion, Lieut. Johansen, along the coast of 

 Norway has been interrtipted by the most striking co- 

 incidence ever known in .\rctic travel — the appearance of 

 his ship the Fram, with all her crew in good health, and 

 with a record of northern latitude only less remarkable 

 than that attained by Nansen himself. On the very day 

 that Nansen sighted the coast of Norway, the Fi'ani forced 

 her way out of the ice-pack into the open sea. 



It will be remembered that Dr. Nansen's expedition 

 was based on a theory of polar ocean-currents. The 

 map published in Nature for May 17, 1894 (vol. 1. p. 57) 

 shows that a current or drift was supposed to set across 

 the Arctic Sea from the neighbourhood of the New 

 Siberian Islands to the coast of Greenland, passing within 

 a few degrees of the North Pole. The strongest piece 

 of evidence for the existence of such a current was the 

 discovery off Julianehaab, in south-west Greenland, of 

 certain relics believed to have drifted from ihe. Jea/mcf/c 

 after her loss near the New Siberian Islands. The 

 authenticity of the /ea/!/!c/le relics is still in dispute. A 

 very elaborate criticism of the evidence concerning them 

 was published, by Prof W. H. Dall, in the Naliomil 

 Geographic Magazine for 1896 (vol. vii. p. 93), which 

 concluded with the opinion that the whole affair was a 

 hoax. This was warmly contradicted by a powerful 

 Committee of the Geographical Society of the Pacific, 

 which wound up its report on May 9, 1896, with the 

 words : " .After carefully weighing these statements and 

 recalling the mental and physical characteristics of Dr. 

 Nansen and the brave comrades and men who cheerfully 

 accompany him, and the special fitness of the Frain to 

 encounter ice dangers, the Conmiittee places upon record 

 its convictions — that the present expedition was fully 

 warranted, and that it will return successful." A month 

 ago these arguments were the only data on which to 

 found an opinion as to Nansen's fate ; and I was astonished 

 to find how pessimistic were the views entertained by 

 well-informed Norwegians, some of whom laughed 

 heartily at me off the Nordkyn on August 10 for turning 



NO. 1400, VOL. 54] 



my glass on the northern horizon on the chance of 

 sighting the Fram, which they believed to have been 

 long ago crushed in the ice, and her crew perished. 

 The unfavourable views expressed by our leading Arctic 

 authorities on Dr. Nansen's scheme of pushing his ship 

 into the ice and allowing her to drift with it, and on his 

 plan of building his vessel so that she should be forced 

 out of the ice instead of being crushed by it in case of 

 being nipped, were loudly expressed, but they are also, 

 fortunately fallacious. The new scheme, founded on a 

 carefully considered hypothesis, has proved completely 

 successful, in spite of its opposition to all the maxims of 

 polar experience and the demands of traditional prudence. 



N.\TURE published last week the very full telegraphic 

 data, obtained by the Daily Chronicle, as to the main 

 points of this most successful of all polar expeditions. 

 These should suffice to satisfy public curiosity until the 

 intrepid explorer is able to give a personal account of 

 his work. The fact that the pole w^is not reached is 

 unimportant, for it is conclusively proved that the pole 

 may be reached with comparative ease by good ski 

 runners, aided by a sufficiency of dogs. The additional 

 news brought by the Fram, throws a good deal of new 

 light on Arctic geography. As reported in the Daily 

 CZ/nw/c/f^jT telegram from Skjervoon August 21 and 25, the 

 general course of the vessel was exactly that predicted by 

 Nansen when he quitted her, viz. westward round the 

 north of Franz Josef Land. She was left under the 

 command of Captain Sverdrup on March 14, 1895, in 

 83° 59' N., 102'' 27' E., embedded in the drifting ice about 

 450 tniles north of Cape Chelyuskin, and 400 miles east 

 of Franz Josef Land. By the end of P'ebruary 1896, she 

 had reached 84° 9' N. and 15' E., a drift of 600 miles, 

 which brought her to a point about 280 miles north of 

 Spitzbergen. Parry in 1827 had reached 82' 45' on the 

 same meridian by sledging over the floe until he was 

 stopped by the rapid southerly drift of the ice. While 

 north of Franz Josef Land the Fram reached its highest 

 latitude, 85° 57', only about 20 miles short of that attained 

 on Dr. Nansen's sledge journey, viz. 86 14'. Had it 

 been possible to dispatch a sledge party from this point, 

 the pole would most probably have been attained. From 

 July 19 to August 12 the Fram was working her way out 

 of the ice by her steam power ; then gaining open water, 

 she reached Skjervo on August 21. The minimum 

 temperature observed was — 52^ C, the maximum only 

 3'' C. Neither land nor icebergs were seen, only an 

 expanse of hummocky floe ice unbroken by any con- 

 siderable stretches of open water. The ice grew to 

 about 13 feet in thickness, and the sea ranged in depth 

 from 1800 to 2200 fathoms. 



Sir George Baden-Powell was fortunate enough to 

 receive Dr. and Mrs. Nansen on his yacht the Otaria at 

 Hammerfest, and to have the satisfaction of taking them to 

 meet the Fram, with which they will probably proceed to 

 Christiania. The enthusiasm of the Norwegian people 

 over Dr. Nansen's success and safe return was beginning 

 to be touched with anxiety for the fate of his equally 

 courageous companions, which this happy reunion has 

 effectually banished. 



Until the voluminous observations bearing on almost 

 all branches of science have been fully discussed, the 

 true value of the results of the expedition cannot of 

 course be known. Even now, how'ever, some important 

 facts are plain. Franz Josef Land is only a group of 

 islands possibly sinaller than Spitzbergen, and it does 

 not afford the dry land highway to the pole to which at 

 one time it was hoped to be the doorway. The absence 

 of icebergs practically proves the absence of any exten- 

 sive land in the track of the current, although it may be 

 that the drift of the Fram being towards the east and 

 not the west of Greenland, indicates the existence of a 

 land barrier near the pole, or on the American side of it. 

 The dream of an open polar sea must be abandoned for 



