The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-12-13
III.

ment that il is the land Of the future.
| Several intcro sting questions Of 2eog-
raphy engage DIR. Nanscn's attention IN
the course Of this work and his notes
are worthy of consideration
While striving to find his way through
the Kara Sea he estimated the age Of
the ice by It's dirtiness and makes the
comment. People who have no expert
! enCe of the polar ice may wonder how
this ice can get dirty" All sorts Of
causes contribute. Even high within the
Arctic the air contains floating impur-
ties and every fail of snow brings down
some Of this burden. When the water
freezes 1t carries in suspension a certain
amount OF mud borne down into the
sea by rivers; the sea is fun Of minute
/ life. From whatever source derived
these impurities Of the ice undergo a
process of condensation with the result
that they become apparent as dirt.
When the surface Of the ice is exposed
to warm rays of the sun It melts to a
greater or less degree. the water thus
released may he absorbed by the at
surface IN drops or slow moving riils
In either case the impurities remain
and gradually as the surface mcl,s the
impurities OF each layer are added To
each succeeding aver until the dirty
appearance is most marked. This cXpla
nation of the phenomenon is proposed hy
Nansen as more general than Nordeu-
s1Iiold's suggestion that dirty ice is
which has served as filter for muddy
water Of the sea or Of rivers.
one Of the inducements offered when
the invitation was extended t. hansen
10 join this expedition was that he would
be able 10 have a steak from a mann
moth discovered the year before in the
tunGra near Golchikha Unfortunately
the dogs had been EnawinG at that
mammoth all winter and in the spring
n scientific party from Petrograd had
carried away all that was left. This ex-
plorer did not regard this as wholly uit-
fortunate. for he had been putting in
his spare time dreaming of the posi-
b.litics OF ptomaines thousands of years
old and what they might do to his in
sides. Quite apart fSlm this detct!c
question the problem of those frozt n
mammals of northern siberia is very
intricate, and no satisfactory solution
has been presented since the discovery
in l11l Of a dozen woody rhnoceros.
The theory of glaciers has been most
commonly offered, against this We OBJ
pose the fact that there is no evidence
of glaciation in Siberia. and even if there
had been 1t is Impossible to conceive how
the fall of such an animal into Gre
vase and his preservation frozen within
block OF ice could pass into the wholly
different condition Of preservation with
In the frozen soil at some distance holow
the present surface. for at any point
where such a body was partly held in
stable earth and partly in fluid ice tho
rcnding force would Ice sufficient to tear
the tissues to pieces. Another eNplana-
ton is that these animals stuck fast in
boys The objection il that the bog
must have frozen Immediately before
the processes of corruption had time
To begin and that the bog must never
have thawed, which is .nconccivable OK
ccpt upon the basis of some great eli
matte catastrophe IT instant and con-
tinuous force for which We have no man
ncr of evidence. Tho same objection
holds as To the theory that these animals
were overcome by the SHOWS of some
blizzard on the tundra, If the snow ever
melted the flesh would decay in the
thaW; II the snow never melted il would
form block Of Ice about the body
whereas In fact these remains are not
found in ice hut in frozen earth.
II should therefore" hansen writoy
after dlsposing Of these and other
theories, he more inclined To think il
happened in this way. That the animals
died perfectly natural death near
n great river in autumn or winter.
The ground below them was thaw,d
10y their bodily warmth and heavy
weight and the animal sank in a
little way until the whole of il
froze and 1t was left frozen fast in
the ground. In the frcshets of ucNt
summer it was flooded over. but thc
cold water was not able Ia thaw II IN
the short time, and it was then covcre
with layers of mud and sand which tho
Hood water brought with it, In this
way II was protected from thavlnr
again Next winter the new layers froye
and the next flood brought a fresh dc.
post on top"
we do not seek to traverse this
theory 81 simply proposed. but it does
not explain the cases where the mann
moth is found frozen in the erect pos
lure without an examination of the
literature in the Memoirs of tho Inn
pcrial Russian Academy of Sciences We
may not venture to state how fire.
duehiiy That erect posture is found, i'm,
we remember a brilliant type case an
which 1t was pointed out that the anil
NAL must have become fixed in this n