nd it may therefore be safely assumed that an
ice-floe bearing these articles from the Jeannette had drifted from
the place where it sank to Julianehaab.

"By what route did this ice-floe reach the west coast of Greenland?

"Professor Mohn, in a lecture before the Scientific Society of
Christiania, in November, 1894, showed that it could have come by no
other way than across the Pole. [3]

"It cannot possibly have come through Smith Sound, as the current
there passes along the western side of Baffin's Bay, and it would
thus have been conveyed to Baffin's Land or Labrador, and not to
the west coast of Greenland. The current flows along this coast in
a northerly direction, and is a continuation of the Greenland polar
current, which comes along the east coast of Greenland, takes a bend
round Cape Farewell, and passes upward along the west coast.

"It is by this current only that the floe could have come.

"But the question now arises: What route did it take from the New
Siberian Islands in order to reach the east coast of Greenland?

"It is conceivable that it might have drifted along the north coast
of Siberia, south of Franz Josef Land, up through the sound between
Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen, or even to the south of Spitzbergen,
and might after that have got into the polar current which flows along
Greenland. If, however, we study the directions of the currents in
these regions so far as they are at present ascertained, it will be
found that this is extremely improbable, not to say impossible."

Having shown that this is evident from the Tegethoff drift and from
many other circumstances, I proceeded:

"The distance from the New Siberian Islands to the 80th degree
of latitude on the east coast of Greenland is 1360 miles, and the
distance from the last-named place to Julianehaab 1540 miles, making
together a distance of 2900 miles. This distance was traversed by
the floe in 1100 days, which gives a speed of 2.6 miles per day of 24
hours. The time during which the relics drifted after having reached
the 80th degree of latitude, till they arrived at Julianehaab, can be
calculated with tolerable precision, as the speed of the above-named
current along the east coast of Greenland is well known. It may be
assumed that it took at least 400 days to accomplish this distance;
there remain, then, about 700 days as the longest time the drifting
articles can have taken from the New Siberian Islands to the 80th
degree of