Land in Vicinity of North Pole 



2 57 



tered in Fury and Hecla Straits and in 

 Bellot Strait. 



Northeasterly currents off the north- 

 western coast of Alaska have been noted 

 by Captain Collinson,* and easterly cur- 

 rents along the northern coast by Cap- 

 tain McClure.f Collinson noted an 

 eastern set in Dease Strait far to the 

 east, I and McClure found a large quan- 

 tity of American pine, almost certainly 

 from the Mackenzie River, drifted into 

 Prince of Wales Strait. § 



McClure Strait is constantly filled 

 with ice, probably coming in chiefly 

 from the west. 



The existence of the current far to 

 the north of Russia is pretty well es- 

 tablished by the drifting of the steam- 

 ship Jeanctte from Herald Island to a 

 point northeast of New Siberia where 

 she was crushed in the ice, and by 

 the subsequent drifting of some papers 

 and clothing from the sunken vessel 

 across the polar sea to Julianehaab, 

 near Cape Farewell. The Jea nette was 

 frozen in the ice September 6, 1879, 

 and was crushed June 12, 1881, having 

 made good a distance of 600 miles. 

 During the last five of these 21 months 

 much more than half of all the distance 

 made good was covered, and during the 

 last 26 days almost one-sixth. The 

 relics were picked up in 1884, or three 

 years after the sinking of the boat, hav- 

 ing gone a distance of at least 2,900 

 miles. 



Before undertaking his famous voy- 

 age in the Fram, Nansen adduced, as 

 further evidence of this current, the 

 finding on the coast of Greenland of an 

 implement which almost certainly came 

 from the Alaskan Eskimos in the vicin- 

 ity of Bering Strait ; also the prevalence 

 of driftwood on the Greenland coasts 

 and the north coast of the Spitzbergen 



* Collinson : Journal of H. M. S. Enterprise, 

 edited by his brother, pp. 137-142. 



t McClure : The Discovery of the Northwest 

 Passage, edited by Osborn, p. 7 1 . 



t Collinson : L. c, p. 291. 



>< Richardson : The Polar Regions, p. 232. 



Islands, the species indicating that a 

 large portion of this wood came from 

 northern Siberia. 



The voyage of the Fram verified his 

 previous calculations in a remarkable 

 manner. That vessel became fast in the 

 ice at a point northwesterly from New 

 Siberia, September 22, 1893. It thence 

 drifted to a point north of the Spitzber- 

 gen Islands, having passed about mid- 

 way between Franz Josef Land and the 

 North Pole. It was released from the 

 ice June 14, 1896, thus having drifted 

 for 33 months, the distance made good 

 being 900 miles. At the beginning of 

 , the drifting the rate of the current was 

 a little more than half a mile per day, 

 and increased to one mile near the end. 



Having established the existence of 

 these two prevailing surface currents, 

 and noting that both eventually flow to 

 southern Greenland, the question arises 

 as to why the Jeanette did not drift 

 almost due north, instead of bearing 

 off to the west. The Fram went al- 

 most directly toward the eastern coast 

 of Greenland. It is true that after the 

 loss of the Jeanctte , Commander De Long 

 and his party found themselves on ice 

 drifting rapidly northward. As already 

 noted, the last 26 days' drifting of the 

 boat covered about one-sixth of the en- 

 tire distance. These facts suggest a 

 broad strait north of Bennett Island, 

 beyond which is the corner of a large 

 tract of land dividing the deep Arctic 

 channel traversed by the Fram from the 

 shallow sea through which the Jeanette 

 drifted. The final accelerated rate and 

 northward direction of De Long's drift 

 seem to indicate proximity to this strait. 



This sea extends from Bennett Island 

 to Banks Land. It is about 30 or 40 

 fathoms deep along the track of the 

 Jeanette, and perhaps from 100 to 200 

 fathoms west of Banks Land, where it 

 is known as Beaufort Sea. 



That land probably extends to the 

 north of Beaufort Sea can be inferred 

 from the fact that the ice found here is 



