4° 



Drifting Across the Pole 



twice before by trappers, but he cal- 

 culated he could get there, spend a few 

 weeks at the station, and return to 

 his ship before spring. So with Cap- 

 tain Mogg,of the whaler Bonanza, which 

 had been stranded on the beach, he set 

 out. 



Four weeks later, on December 5, the 

 people of Eagle City were startled to 

 be told by one of two white men who 

 came in on snowshoes that he had 

 come from Europe via the Arctic 

 Ocean. To cross in the dead of winter 

 the immense expanse of ice stretching 

 from Eagle City to the mouth of the 

 Mackenzie alone seemed impossible, 

 and not until the outside world identi- 

 fied him by telegraph would they be- 

 lieve that it was Amundsen. 



Amundsen has announced that about 

 the middle of January he will return to 

 his ship at the Mackenzie River. He 

 proposes to bring her through Bering 

 Strait to San Francisco, and then re- 

 turn to Christiania by way of Cape 

 Horn, thus completely circumnavigat- 

 ing the American continent. In arctic 

 history Amundsen will rank with 

 Greely, Nansen, and Peary. 



DRIFTING ACROSS THE POLE 



TWO of the drift casks which were 

 set loose in Bering Sea at 

 the instigation of President Henry G. 

 Bryant, of the Geographical Society of 

 Philadelphia, and of Admiral George 

 W. Melville some years ago have been 

 recovered. One of them was found on 

 the coast of Iceland, 2,500 miles from 

 the point where it was cast overboard 

 on the Alaskan coast. In its tortuous 

 course it probably traveled 4,000 miles. 

 Its drift across the Arctic Ocean proves 

 once more the existence of an Arctic 

 current flowing from Bering Sea across 

 the north polar region. 



Fifty spindle-shape casks were con- 

 structed from designs submitted by 

 Admiral Melville and were sent north 

 on United States revenue cutters and 



whaling ships to Bering Strait and 

 there dropped overboard in 1899, 1900 

 and 1901. 



Each cask was numbered and con- 

 tained a message in four languages, re- 

 questing the finder to notify the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Philadelphia if the 

 cask turned up. .In reporting the re- 



Courtesy of the New York Times 



Amundsen's Ship, Gjoa 



covery of the casks to the Society, Mr 

 Bryant said : 



"An examination of the first record 

 shows that it was cast adrift by Captain 

 F, Tuttle, of the U. S: R. C. Bear on 

 August 21, 1901, about eighty-five 

 miles northwest of Wrangel Island, and 

 recovered by Captain A. G. Christian- 

 son on August 17, 1902, near the mouth 



