526 EDITORIAL 
Farewell it rounds to the westward and even northward, until it 
is again arrested by Baffin Land and the American mainland, 
and forced southward. The marvelous trip of Nansen has given 
this a heroic demonstration not likely to be questioned. It is 
also known that the ice fields north of Greenland and Grinnell 
Land press hard against the coast, and crowd through the straits 
between these lands in a southwesterly direction. It is also 
known that the ice presses hard on the north side of the Parry 
Islands and pushes southward and eastward, effectually block- 
ing all the straits between them as well as Jones Sound on the 
east. It is also known that Banks strait and McClintock chan- 
nel, trending from the northwest to the southeast, are effectually 
blocked by the persistent jam of the ice crowding in from the 
northwest. It is the strong and unremitting jam of ice into this 
channel that has rendered all attempts at the northwest passage 
abortive. Correlating these movements, it appears that there is 
a common drift towards some point not far distant from the 
magnetic pole. 
Now it is well recognized that this ice drift is essentially con- 
trolled by the winds. The sea currents are, to be sure, a factor, 
but, except as they are an expression of wind action, they seem 
to be relatively ineffectual. These movements have therefore 
suggested the hypothesis that the pole of the winds is not identi- 
cal with the pole of the earth, but lies somewhere in the quarter 
toward which the ice drift tends to concentrate itself. This is 
based on the assumption that the supposed spiral course of the 
winds about the atmospheric pole tends to concentrate the ice 
at it. It is not difficult to find data in lower latitudes that fall 
in with this hypothesis, as, for instance, the predominant course 
of mid-latitude cyclones in this country and the trend of the 
Asiatic arid belts. 
This is not the place to argue the hypothesis nor to set forth 
the numerous and important corollaries that spring from it. A 
sufficient number of significant corollaries will doubtless suggest 
themselves to indicate its importance, 2févwe. The purpose in 
' hand is to show how decisive the determination of the course 
