The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XII, No. 2 [‎289r] (80/154)

PROPOSAL FOR AN EXPEDITION TO SANNIKOFF LAND.
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Nansen about moraines and glacial strife on the Taimyr peninsula gave positive
evidence for the acceptance of glaciation in Northern Asia.* However, the observed
facts seem to offer certain peculiarities, and to somewhat differ from the well-known
traces of glaciation in Europe, so that a strict verification is required in order to
levy all doubts. On the New Siberia island it is the “rock-ice,” or the fossil glaciers
as I have described them, which can be considered as the last vestiges of a former
glaciation. The points of comparison between these fossil masses of ice and the
present glaciers of the arctic regions cannot easily be found—the more so as the
latter have been but insufficiently studied. Only the detailed investigations of E.
von Drygalski, whose beautiful work has just been published, contain the basis
upon which “ rock-ice” can be better investigated.
If the rock-ice of New Siberia be a remnant of the old continental glaciation,
as Drygalski is also inclined to accept with me, we may expect to find, on the
islands farther north, the centre of radiation of that glaciation. A number of
observations indicate that the motion of the continental ice-mass must have taken
place in the New Siberia islands in a meridional direction. The exploration of the
archipelago on the north of New Siberia will show whether this movement was
directed from the north or not. Moreover, it will show whether I am right in my
supposition that the Quaternary mammals of New Siberia inhabited a continent
which had once a wide extension towards the north and the east, possibly being
connected with America, and only gradually was cut into an archipelago. The
sum total of the geological exploration of that archipelago, in connection with the
comparative study of arctic literature of other regions, must finally throw new light
upon the question whether the arctic islands altogether, with the exception of the
New Siberia islands, which are undoubtedly continental islands—are remains of a
broken up continent or not.
Going hand-in-hand with the geological observations, the zoological and lotanical
investigations will give further information concerning the just-mentioned question
relative to the origin of these islands. It will appear whether their sweet-water
fauna and flora are akin to the flora and fauna of the Asiatic continent only, or
also contain an admixture of American species, or of such species as are character
istic of all other arctic lands. An equally great interest must be offered by the
study of the marine fauna, and a still greater interest by the study of the micro
organisms in the snow flora and fauna, and especially in the fossil masses of ice.
The meteorological observations which would be made at a spot situated as far
as possible north of the Siberian coasts would be of the greatest importance. They
would give, so to say, a basis for the highly interesting meteorological observations
which were made during the drift of the Fram, and consequently related, like all
other travelling observations, to some new spot nearly every day.
As to the importance and necessity of observations on terrestrial magnetism, I per
mit myself to give, in connection with the subject, the following quotation only
“ ir or our knowledge of the magnetic conditions of the Earth, the observations
which we may make in the course of ten years cannot be a substitute for those
observations which we lose the opportunity to make. What has not been done
to-day is lost for ever; and the absence of these data will remain for ever a gap
and a hindrance. Later on, but only after a long interval of time, it will, perhaps,
be possible some day to reconstitute the present conditions in a theoretical way.
But the perfection of the theory, which will be required for that end, will only
* Subsequently Vysotsky, who explored the lower Ob in 1896, and Inn. Lopatin,
in the diary of his journey of 1866, which was only published in 1898, brought further
proofs in favour of the glaciation of these regions.