The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-05-16

scope exhibit very characteristic and
sometimes beautiful forms and mark
ings. They are universally distributed
over the globe, in fresh as we'll as salt
water, but are particularly abundant in
the polar seas, being, indeed, the only
form OF vegetable lie TO be found in
nigh la1tudes. Individual diatoms are
too small to be visible, but they congre-
gate in such masses in polar seas as 10
give the sides of icebergs the appear
ance of being stained with iron rust;
and their silicious shells are rained
down upon the bottoms of the ocean
to form fine sand which ultimately
becomes hardened into finty rock.
But in spite of the universal distribu-
ton of diatoms as a class, there are
certain species of the tiny plants that
are of very restricted habitat. A con-
siderable number. for example, which
are easily recognized under the micIU-
scope, have until recent years been
supposed to be confined exclusively to
the seas about Boring strait. But when
NanSen made his trip across Green
land five years ago ne collected dust
from the ice foes of the eastern shore
of that island, which on being subjected
to microscopic analysis after his return
by Professor Cleve of Upsala, was
found to contain numerous specimens
of these Siberian species of diatoms.
The conclusion seemed unayoida bic
that there must be open-sea connec-
ton between these two regions. Darwin
had, indeed, while on his famous sea
voyage with Captain Fitzroy, collected
diatoms in dust that fell from the air
on shipboard in mid ocean; but Nan
sens specimens were collected in situa-
tionS that left no doubt of their having
been washed up by the current, not de-
posted from the air. Hence ne inferred
H.. Ont
which had conveyed the diatoms, on
their ice raft, from Siberia to eastern
Greenland.
OF course, there were other clews
that pointed in the same direction, but
perhaps no other single bit of evidence
was so'infiuential as that furnished by
the microscopic diatoms in giving Nan
sen that faith in polar current which
his subsequent experience with the
Fran so fully justified. This current, as
everybody knows now since hansen
and the Fran have returned, flows to
the northeast along the coast of Europe,
is detected to the northwest, and
sweeping across the polar region, flows
as return current along the eastern
shore of Greenland and on to the south.
It was this current which had swept
the diatoms to the locality where Nam
sen found them, and which came so
near floating the Fran to its desired
destination beneath the pole.
1t would appear that this great cur
rent which surges across the polar sea,
whose existence few besides Nansen
himself were DISPOSED to credit until
now, is really a continuation af that
current which in temperate ATTITUDES
of the Atlantic is called the gulf
stream; a current which owes its exist
ence, it is believed, to the trade winds
that sweep the tropics. So we are
presented with the curious paradox,
that the motive power which drove the
helpless Fran, cased in an almost
boundless mass of ice, through the
frigid polar sea, was really the torrid
wind blowing along the equator.
Who would have predicted that mi
croscopic plant would be the chief
guide-post. and a tropical wind the
motor in an all but successful assault
upon the polar stronghold?