THE FROZEN NORTH

Northern Advocate, 6 February 1926, Page 9

THE FROZEN NORTH

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 ice north of Siberia, indicate that there is no Arctic continent or land mass in the great unexplored area between Alaska and the North Pole.

This was revealed by Dr. Harald U. Sverdrup, 5n charge of the scientific work of the expedition, who lectured recently to the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Using an electrical recording current-meter designed and constructed on board the ship. Dr. Sverdrup made observations at the Bear Islands over a period of 14 months. He discovered 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 land;” The 1 Maud left Seattle on June 3, 1922, -to penetrate into the drift-ice north of Behring Strait, and, if possible, to be carried by it across the Arctic Sea to the vicinity of Spitzbergen, Dr. Sverdrup explained. Closed in by the ice at Wrangle Island on August 8, 1922, 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 1924, the vessel was again caught in the ice at the Bear Islands, 800 miles west of Behring Straits, and it was not until Augpst 22 last, that Nome was finally reached. Dr. Sverdrup explained that the principal object of the expedition was to make scientific observations of terrestrial magnetism, weather, the Aurora Borealis, sea depth, temperature, and air currents. By means of small balloons the air currents of the upper part of the atmosphere over the Arctic were studied. The temperature of the air from the ice to an altitude of about 0000 feet was studied directly by recording instruments lifted by kites. “The most interesting result of these 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 that can 1 be attained in the region visited by the Maud is minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Dr. Sverdrup ascertained this fact as a result of observations which indicated that the heat lost to the upper air and gained from tiie warmer sea water below would equalise at that temperature.