Abstract
THE last number (August 26) of Der Naturforscher contains a first attempt to lay down the scientific results of this expedition, in a paper by Herr H. Wichmann, based on the reports of Messrs. Melville and Danenhauer, and of the naturalist of the expedition, Mr. Newcomb. It is known that after having passel, on August 31, the wintering station of the Vega, the Jeannette sailed north, towards Wrangel's Land. But on September 5, when twenty miles north-east of Herald Island, she was frozen in, and during twenty-one months remained so, “the play of winds and currents.” However drifted in different directions, she still advanced during all this time towards the north-west. The first wintering was north of Wrangel Land, which last proved to be a large island, and not a part of an Arctic continent as had been presumed. The precious observations on aurora? and magnetism which were made during the winter (about 2000 measurements) are unhappily lost, as well as extensive collections of birds and of deep-sea fauna. The depth of the ocean in these regions was everywhere very small—thirty fathoms on an average, with a maximum of sixty and a minimum of seventeen fathoms. The bottom was usually a blue ooze, with a few shells and sometimes stones, which seemed to be of meteoric origin.
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Scientific Results of the “Jeannette” Expedition . Nature 26, 479 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026479a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026479a0