amining large quantities of
driftwood both on the west coast and on the east coast of Greenland. I
have, moreover, found pieces drifting in the sea off the east coast,
and, like earlier travellers, have arrived at the conclusion that
much the greater part of it can only have come from Siberia, while
a smaller portion may possibly have come from America. For amongst
it are to be found fir, Siberian larch, and other kinds of wood
peculiar to the north, which could scarcely have come from any other
quarter. Interesting in this respect are the discoveries that have
been made on the east coast of Greenland by the second German Polar
Expedition. Out of twenty-five pieces of driftwood, seventeen were
Siberian larch, five Norwegian fir (probably Picea obovata), two a
kind of alder (Alnus incana?), and one a poplar (Populus tremula? the
common aspen), all of which are trees found in Siberia.

"By way of supplement to these observations on the Greenland side,
it may be mentioned that the Jeannette expedition frequently found
Siberian driftwood (fir and birch) between the floes in the strong
northerly current to the northward of the New Siberian Islands.

"Fortunately for the Eskimo, such large quantities of this driftwood
come every year to the coasts of Greenland that in my opinion one
cannot but assume that they are conveyed thither by a constantly
flowing current, especially as the wood never appears to have been
very long in the sea--at all events, not without having been frozen
in the ice.

"That this driftwood passes south of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen
is quite as unreasonable a theory as that the ice-floe with the relics
from the Jeannette drifted by this route. In further disproof of this
assumption it may be stated that Siberian driftwood is found north
of Spitzbergen in the strong southerly current, against which Parry
fought in vain.

"It appears, therefore, that on these grounds also we cannot but admit
the existence of a current flowing across, or in close proximity to,
the Pole.

"As an interesting fact in this connection, it may also be mentioned
that the German botanist Grisebach has shown that the Greenland flora
includes a series of Siberian vegetable forms that could scarcely
have reached Greenland in any other way than by the help of such a
current conveying the seeds.

"On the drift-ice in Denmark Strait (between Iceland and Greenland)
I have made observations which tend to the conclusion that t