47 



was every reason to be hopeful for good weather for the next few 

 days. 



The course lay northeasterly to Archangel, over which we passed 

 about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. At 1900 the Graf Zeppelin pa.ssed 

 out over the Barents Sea, and an hour later the Arctic Circle was 

 crossed, with darkness soon falling thereafter. During the night the 

 speed was reduced from GO to 35 miles an hour by a strong northerly 

 wind, and the air temperature tlroppcd in consequence to the coldest 

 encountered during the voyage, 2° C. (35.6° F.). As we continued 

 northward across the Barents Sea, the morning of July 25, the ship 

 passed through several scattered banks of fog. Finally a thick mist 

 completely enveloped the duigible; but, rising to an altitude of 800 

 feet, we easily skinnned over the top of the fog, with blue sky over- 

 head. At 1450 the stratus sheet was drawn away, and far below us, 

 scattered here and there, lay the first of the sea-ice, in long strips 

 and strings, with much open water around. 



The southern boundary of the ice in approximately 78° latitude 

 lay approximately 120 miles south of Franz Josef Land. The pack 

 ice was composed of glagons ranging in width from 2 to 100 feet. 

 It appeared to be about 3 feet thick and also quite flat, the absence 

 of pressure ridges and hummocking indicating plainly that it was prob- 

 ably formed during the previous winter. The farther northward we 

 proceeded, the tighter grew the pack, but in no area south of Franz 

 Josef Land did the concentration of the cover exceed 75 per cent. 



With the sighting of the southern headlands of the Franz Josef 

 Land islands, at a distance of 35 miles, the pack gradually opened, 

 and soon we were crossing the shore lead of some 10 miles in width. 

 The presence of a shore lead, moreover, persisted in Franz Josef 

 Land, except in the northernmost islands, where the more solid pack 

 had become jammed in the narrow waterways. 



The islands making up the Franz Josef Land group are fairly low 

 in altitude with flattened ice-worn tops, the results of past overridings 

 of the ice. No really alpine type of glaciers similar to those in 

 Greenland or Spitsbergen, were observed. The glaciation, in general, 

 consists of a gentle sweeping overflow which meets the sea in the 

 form of long, low-lying ice walls. • The bergs, if the occasional larger 

 fragments could be so termed, are flat and tabular, barely larger in 

 size than growlers. From our cursory survey of Franz Josef Land it 

 is difficult to believe that anything other than small icebergs and 

 growlers are calved from the ice sheets, and furthermore, the amount 

 of discharge appears to be relatively small. 



At 1,800 we alighted for 20 minutes on the water near the Russian 

 ice breaker Malygin, then anchored off Hooker Island radio station. 

 Post was exchanged, after which the Graf Zeppelin rose to an altitude 



