82 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



there is more than one report of high land seen to the north-east of the 

 Spitsbergen group. This, if it exists, is not Giles Land, which is farther south 

 and relatively low, but it may be an outlying island of the Franz Josef group. 8 

 There are, however, other problems of great interest in the north. The 

 extent and bottom features of the Arctic basin are still little known, and 

 only in a few places has the width of the remarkable continental shelf 

 been denned. North of Alaska, the New Siberian Islands, and Spitsbergen, 

 the edge has been charted and with less certainty north of Ellesmere 

 Island and the Franz Josef group. In other parts it is still vague. When 

 evidence is scanty it may seem rash to speculate on the origin of the 

 Arctic Ocean, but there are many features about the Arctic basin which 

 suggest that it is not comparable with the basins of the Atlantic and 

 Pacific, and that it is possibly a relatively new feature of the earth's 

 crust. On the other hand, the discovery in East Greenland of extensive 

 series of Palaeozoic rocks seems to dispose of the idea of a former Arctic 

 continent of great extent. 



Another problem of importance and far-reaching influence is the 

 mysterious fluctuation in the extent of Arctic sea-ice. The fluctuations 

 appear to be cyclic rather than progressive, but so far defy satisfactory 

 explanation. 0. B. P. Brooks has recently pointed out the influence of 

 the amount of ice in the Labrador and East Greenland currents on pressure 

 distribution and -consequent amount of precipitation in the British Isles. 9 

 Here at least is one direct link between the Arctic and the most important 

 factor in our climate. But until we know more about Arctic climatic 

 conditions and the distribution of ice in the Arctic basin, we are not likely 

 to find the cause of these fluctuations. 



Facts so far available point to a rotary surface movement with over- 

 flows from an overcharged Arctic basin, by the Greenland Sea and other 

 less important outlets. This movement may account for the tendency 

 of ice-bound vessels in the Arctic basin to take a peripheral drift, as the 

 Fram, Jeannette, Karluk and Maud. It may also explain the relatively 

 smooth and unrafted ice reported from the vicinity of the Pole. Again, 

 the heavy ice to the north of Greenland, which proved so baffling to the 

 Nares expedition that it received the title of palaeocrystic ice, may be due 

 simply to the heaping and rafting against the land of the pack that has 

 been swept past the overflow of the East Greenland current. It cannot, 

 however, be said that this circulation is proved. Far more observations 

 are required. 



Fluctuations in the amount of ice in the overflow currents may well 

 be due to variations in the strength of these currents. These variations 

 may be associated with departures from the normal in the amount of 



8 Giles Land (also Gillies Land or Island), discovered in 1707, was re-discovered 

 by J. Kjeldsen in 1876 and explored by A. G. Nathorst in 1898. It lies in about 

 lat. 80° N., due east of Spitsbergen. This is where Giles himself placed it. 



9 See the annual report on The State of Ice in the Arctic Seas, published by the 

 Danish Meteorological Office from all available records. It is necessarily incomplete 

 and leaves great areas untouched, especially the seas north of Asia and the Beaufort 

 Sea where observations are most needed. C. E. P. Brooks, ' Pressure distribution 

 associated with seasons in the British Isles,' Quart. Jour. Boy. Meteorol. Soc, 52, 

 1926 ; W. Weise, ' Polareis und atmospharische Schwankungen,' Oeogr. Ann., 6, 

 p. 273, Stockholm, 1924. 



