132 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1336 



Nansen Fund for the Advancement of 



Science. 



During the first Norwegian Arctic expedi- 

 tion, when the attaining of the North Pole by 

 Nansen was the main object, Captain Otto 

 Sverdrup expressed the desire to return to 

 Arctic lands for exploration and mapping of 

 portions of the American Arctic island archi- 

 pelago. The fulfilment of this desire was 

 made possible through gifts of about $60,000 

 by Consul Axel Heiberg and the Eingnes 

 brothers, brewers in the city of Kristiania, 

 the same three men whose generosity made 

 possible the first Arctic expedition in the 

 Fram. This staunch vessel, repaired and 

 ready for a second time to pass through the 

 ordeal of ice-bound seas, was the Storthing's 

 contribution to the expedition. A more pro- 

 ductive exploration of Arctic lands, with so 

 small a sum of money, has not been made 

 before, and the names of the donors are now 

 permanently fixed in geography in the new 

 islands, Axel Heiberg Land, Amund Eingnes 

 Land and Ellef Eingnes Land. The expe- 

 dition explored and mapped about 100,000 

 square miles, the greater part of which is new 

 territory. Like most Arctic explorations, its 

 successes were won through the hardest kind 

 of work, and two lives were sacrificed to the 

 advance of knowledge, those of the phys- 

 ician, Johan Svendsen, and the sailor, Ove 

 Braskerud. 



Captain Sverdrup was assisted in his work 

 by fifteen men. Of these Gr. I. Isachsen was 

 the cartographer, H. G. Simmons the botanist, 

 Edvard Bay the zoologist, and Per Schei the 

 geologist. A better fitted and a more loyal 

 band of hard workers — ^both men of science 

 and sailors — never explored unknown lands. 

 They brought back the results and collections 

 which are in the main described, either in 

 English or German, in these four handsome 

 volumes. It is a source of regret that Per 

 Schei did not live to see the final working up 

 of his grand geologic collections, since all at- 

 test that this warm-hearted man of science 

 collected a vast mass of material; in fact, it 

 may be said of him that he made accessible 

 to paleontology and stratigraphy more in- 



formation of an exact nature than all previous 

 Arctic expeditions. 



These four volumes, together with Captain 

 Sverdrup's popular account, entitled " Nfew 

 Land" (2 volumes, 1904), should be in every 

 scientific library, not only because of their 

 great intrinsic value, but because we owe it 

 to our Norwegian friends thus to show our 

 appreciation of their splendid achievement. 



The astronomical and geodetical observa- 

 tions are described by Isachsen (141 pages) 

 and pictured on three large, topographically 

 shaded maps, one of the most important re- 

 sults of the expedition. Terrestrial mag- 

 netism is treated by A. S. Steen (82 pages) ; 

 the results here are important because the 

 Sverdrup expedition worked for four years 

 not far from the magnetic north pole. How- 

 ever, due to the lack of proper instruments 

 and to other causes, the hoped-for results were 

 not fully attained. The section on meteorol- 

 ogy is by H. Mohn (399 pages) and consists 

 of the facts gathered by the expedition, hei'e 

 detailed in tables presenting the atmospheric 

 pressure, temperature of the air, humidity, 

 winds, clouds, and precipitation. 



All naturalists traveling in the far north 

 are surprised by the extraordinary abundance 

 of plants that come to life and bloom during 

 the very short but extremely active growing 

 season. Flowers may be gathered early in 

 June, and for a month during June and July 

 the plants grow day and night, because of the 

 nightless days, and beautiful flowers of Alpine 

 kinds may be collected within a few feet of 

 the ice fields. There are no trees, and but 

 few plants attain a foot in height, and yet in 

 spots there is a green covering. Most of the 

 plants grow in tufts and peripherally in small 

 and large mounds. The entire growing sea- 

 son is less than four months long and yet 

 during this time is made the necessary food 

 on which the land animals subsist. Of these 

 latter there are at least 30 kinds of insects, 

 7 spiders, 5 birds, and 9 mammals (polar bear, 

 wolf, fox, ermine, glutton, lemming, hare, 

 muskox, and reindeer). The two last named 

 are large animals, and one wonders where they 

 get sufficient food during the long winter. 



