“In America, when it was reported that these articles had been found, people were very sceptical, and doubts of their genuineness were expressed in the American newspapers. The facts, however, can scarcely be sheer inventions; and 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: