THE FROZEN NORTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1926, Page 5

THE FROZEN NORTH.

I NO LAND IN ARCTIC SEA. (By SCIENCE SERVICE.) Tidal observations made during the long three years' stay of the Maud, Captain Raold Amundsen's ship, in Arctic j ice north of Siberia, indicate thnt then' ]is no Arctic continent or land mass ir. ! the great unexplored area between ( I Alaska and the North Pole. This was revealed by Dr. Harald U. ' Sverdrup, in charge of the. scientific I work of the expedition, who lectured 1 1 recently to the Carnegie Institution of • Washington. Using an electrical re- j ! fording current-meter designed and eon- , structed on board the ship, Dr. Sverdrup . made observations at the Bear Islands ' over a period of 14 months. He dis- J covered that the tidal wave reaches \ those islands off the north coast of '■ Siberia, in such a way that it "seems to | come directly across the Arctic Sea, , without meeting obstructions formed by i land." : The Maud left Seattle on .Tune 3. 1922, to ppnetrate into the drift-ice north of Behrinjr Strait, and, if possible, to be carried by it across tile Arctic Sea to the vicinity of Spitsbergen, Dt. Sverdrup explained. Closed in by the ice at Wrangle Island on August 8, 1022, the Maud drifted for two years west-north-west to the region north of the New Siberian Islands. In an attempt to return to Nome, Alaska, in 1024, the vessel was again caught in the ice at the Bear Islands, 800 miles I west of Behring Straits, and it was not I until August 22 last, that Nome was i finally reached. Dr. Sverdrup explained that the prin- | eipal object of the expedition was to j make scientific observations of terrea- ; trial magnetism, weather, the Aurora . Borenlis, sea depth, temperature, and j air currents. By means of small balloons the air currents of the upper part ! lof the atmosphere over the Arctic were i studied. The temperature of the air ' from the ice to an altitude of about j tjOOO feet was studied directly by reI cording instruments lifted by kite?, i I "The most interesting result of these i observations is that the temperature in , winter is always lower close to the ice than at an altitude of 1000 feet." Dr. Sverdrup said. "The lowest temperature is found at the ice during calm weather." The lowest natural temperature thnt I can be attained in the region visited by I the Maud is minus 50 degrees Falirenj heit. Dr. Sverdrup ascertained this fact as a result of observations which ! indicated that the heat lost to the upper air and gained from the warmer sea i water below would equalise at that tern; i perature.