94 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
from the Jeannette drifted ashore on the southern 
coast of Greenland in 1884, and this gave Dr. Nan¬ 
sen the idea on which he based his expedition in the 
Fram, that a ship allowed to freeze in the ice north 
of the New Siberian Islands, near the point where 
the Jeannette sank, would be carried by the cur¬ 
rents in a drift across the Pole. Nansen himself 
left the Fram in the course of her drift and made 
a journey over the ice in an attempt to reach the 
Pole, getting to 86° 84 N., and after his departure 
the Fram , in her drift, reached almost as high a 
latitude as he attained on foot, without, however, 
giving evidence of the accuracy of the theory of a 
drift across the Pole. I believe, that the drift fol¬ 
lows the general outline of the land, from east to 
west around the periphery of the Arctic Ocean, and 
that a craft, built in general like the Roosevelt but 
not so large, with a ship’s company of eight 
who should be crew and scientific staff in one, 
could follow this drift from beginning to end, 
and would, in a period of three or four years, cover 
the greater part of the circuit of the Arctic Ocean. 
Such an expedition would add much to our scien¬ 
tific knowledge of the Arctic regions, working out 
the ocean currents, exploring the floor of the sea, 
obtaining accurate soundings for plotting positions 
on the chart, outlining the continental shelf, gather¬ 
ing information about the air currents for the use 
