Nansen's Continental Oscillations— Spencer. 221 
DR. NANSEN'S "BATHYMETRICAL FEATURES OF THE 
NORTH POLAR SEA, WITH A DISCUSSION OF THE 
CONTINENTAL SHELVES AND THE PRE- 
VIOUS OSCILLATIONS OF THE SHORE- 
LINE."* 
A Review by J. W Spenceb. 
This is one of the comprehensive scientific memoirs 
which have been the outcome of Dr. Nansen's Arctic ex- 
plorations. While it treats of the physiographic features 
of the Polar basin, yet the greater part, is devoted to the 
investigation of continental shelves, not merely of the 
Arctic basin, but also those of the Atlantic, in which respect 
it is the most important work that has appeared anywhere, 
and along with that is the investigation of the drowned 
valleys dissecting the shelves. 
Dr. Nansen has considerately, for us English-speaking 
people, written in our own tongue, but as his monograph 
is published in Norway, few in this country will be able 
to see the original work, and yet the book is absolutely 
necessary for any serious student of the subject, but for 
those who cannot see the original an attempt at summariz- 
ing it may be of some assistance. 
Dr. Nansen tells us that he planned his expedition, on 
the assumption that there was a free Polar sea, and ex- 
pected along with most geographers that it was compara- 
tively shallow. But the discovery of the great continental 
slope in front of the broad submerged shelf of the Eurasian 
continent, reaching to a depth of 4,000 metres and more, 
proved the existence of a great sea basin, only limited by 
the rise of a corresponding slope to the continental shelf 
of the American side. How far the shelf extends beyond 
the American archipelago is not known, but certain it is 
that there is deep water at the North pole. This feature 
is illustrated in a finely executed colored chart, giving us a 
graphic idea of the size and form of the true basin. 
North of the low Siberian coast, the continental shelf 
reaches to 640 kilometres in breadth, at which point its 
depth below the sea is only 156 metres. The width of the 
shelf from Alaska, north of P>ering strait and Siberia to 
Franz Joseph land, is nearly uniform, though in places re- 
* Quarto, pp. 232, plates 28. Publls hed by the Fridt jof Nansen fund 
for tlif Advancement of Science, Cliri stiania. 19<)4. 
