286 ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 



is still intact, and that before long we shall hear of the safety of the 

 plucky and enthusiastic explorer and his gallant companions, and when 

 we do hear, may we rest assured that, even if his theory has proved an 

 unpractical one, he will still have achieved such a measure of geo- 

 graphical success as will reflect credit on himself and on all concerned. 



Very interesting information respecting the New Siberia Islands 

 has been culled by Baron Toll, who paid a visit to that little-known 

 group in the spring of 1892. Leaving the mainland on May 1, and 

 accompanied only by one Cossack and three natives, he traveled over 

 the ice in sledges drawn by dogs, and reached the south coast of Lyakhov 

 Island. Here some very interesting discoveries were made. Under 

 what is described as the "perpetual ice" they found not only fragments 

 of willow and the bones of post-Tertiary mammals, but also complete 

 trees of Alnus fruticosa 15 feet in leugth, with leaves and cones adher- 

 ing, thus proving that during the mammoth period tree vegetation had 

 reached the seventy- fourth degree of latitude three degrees farther north 

 than it is found at the present time. The " perpetual ice," Baron Toll 

 asserts, is not due to the accumulation of snow, but must be considered 

 as originating from the ice during the glacial period, representing, in 

 fact, remains of the old ice cap. 



It is a great pity that no account of the state and condition of the 

 ice to the northward of the islands is given by Baron Toll. A knowl- 

 edge of it would be of the greatest interest at the present time, as 

 enabling us to form some opinion respecting the character of the pack 

 in which we must assume the Fram is now imprisoned. His account of 

 the islands, their geological formation, natural history, etc., is extremely 

 interesting, more especially with regard to those great masses of buried 

 ice, in which has been found in incredible quantities the bones and 

 tusks and, indeed, whole skeletons of the mammoth, rhinoceros, and 

 even the musk ox, and in such a wonderful state of preservation that 

 the tusks so found can not be distinguished from the very best and 

 purest ivory. 



The cruise of the Jeannette in this particular locality did not add 

 very much to our geographical knowledge of the Arctic regions, but 

 this much was accomplished, namely, the penetration, by way of Bering 

 Strait, to a greater distance into the unknown area than had ever been 

 reached in that direction before. The Jeannette was, it will be remem- 

 bered, beset in the ice on September 6, 1879, to the northward of Herald 

 Island, in 71° 35' north latitude and in 175° west longitude. In this 

 pack she remained helplessly fixed until she was crushed by it in June, 

 1881. During this long period her drift was somewhat remarkable. 

 During the first twelve months of her imprisonment she drifted about 

 150 miles in a north-northwest direction, and during the last nine 

 months the current had carried her no less than 250 miles to the north- 

 west. It is also a curious fact that between April 20, 1880, and Novem- 

 ber 3 of the same year, she was carried about in such an erratic manner, 



