The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XII, No. 2 [‎288v] (79/154)

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PROPOSAL FOR AN EXPEDITION TO SANNIKOFF LAND.
to solve, are already indicated in what has just been said. It need’only be added
that the working field of such an expedition would touch part of the unknown, i.e.
never yet visited polar regions which reach the lowest latitudes in the eastern
hemisphere.*
Among the physico-geographical researches, geological problems stand fore
most. Some remarks on this subject have already been made in the exposition
of the reasons which make one believe in the existence of an undiscovered archi
pelago in the north of the New Siberia islands. I will only add what solutions
may be found in this region for most important questions relative to the latest
periods of the history of our globe.
In the study of the Tertiary sediments which, as already said, must be ex
pected to he found at Cape Emma, on Bennet Island, as a direct continuation of
the New Siberia deposits, we meet with one of the most interesting problems,
namely, How could sub-tropical plants thrive so near the pole under the
present position of the Earth’s axis of rotation ? It is well known that in Green
land, Grinnell Land, Spitsbergen, and New Siberia, there are Tertiary deposits
(Miocene?) which contain impressions of leaves and fruit-cones of several species
of Sequoia, Dammara, and so on, as also large leaves of poplars and other trees which
belong partly to a sub-tropical flora. Basing himself upon the words of Schiaparelli,
who thinks that astronomy has nothing to object to a change in the position of
the Earth’s axis of rotation, if geologists prove the necessity of such an admission,
Neumayer attempted to explain the, in his opinion, abnormal grouping of the
Tertiary floras round the pole by the supposition of the pole having moved since
the Tertiary age ten degrees from Northern Asia in the meridian of Ferro. In
such case the pole of the Tertiary age would have been situated in the latitude
of 80°, where this parallel passes through the archipelago which it is now pro
posed to explore. However, Nathorst, who has further worked out this theory,
thinks that the pole ought to have been situated ten degrees southwards in
the direction of North Asia, in which case, what was then the 80th degree of
latitude would have passed, as it passed now, through the same archipelago.
The flora of the Tertiary “Wood Mountains” of New Siberia, which is now
situated under the 75th degree of latitude, tells, in my opinion, against the theory
of Neumayer and Nathorst. But Nathorst remarked that the fossil plants which
I brought home in the year 1886, and which represent only fifteen species, are
not sufficient to settle the point at issue. In that year I had but a few days
for the exploration of the island of New Siberia and its “ Wood Mountains,”
and I had but two dogs to transport my collection, my food supplies, and my
How much better could the Tertiary deposits be explored during a year’s
stay in Bennet island, and how much more could be collected from the “ Wood
Mountains if the collectors had a ship at their disposal for the home journey! I
have no doubt that this new expedition would definitively settle the above question.
Another equally important problem is the Quarternary age. The original charac
teristics of the deposits belonging to that period have long since been explained
for Europe and North America by the admission of a wide glaciation during the
glacial period. As regards Asia, Prince Kropotkin was till lately alone in maintain-
ing that parts of Asia, and especially middle Siberia, were also glaciated during the
Quaternary period ; but Northern Asia was considered till quite recently as having
not been glaciated at all during the age when the Ice-period prevailed in the two
other parts of the globe. Only my observations in the New Siberian islands in the
year 1886, and at the m outh of the Ana bar in 1893, and the testimony of
* Of. A. Supan’s ‘ Map of the Limits of the Unknown Polar Regions,’ in Petermanns
Mitteilungen, Bd. xliii., 1897, p. 15, plate 3rd.