The Norwegian North Polar Expedition, 1893–6

Abstract

ON August 29, 1893, the Fram was steaming smooth and open water between the isle Taimur and Almquist Islands; towards evening she approached thick ice in order to make fast to it. very slight current was observed as she neared the ice, but the vessel made extremely slow progress, and the speed was reduced to 1 or 11/2 knots, although the engines were working at full power, which would have given a speed of 41/2 to, knots in ordinary circumstances. Nansen's journal attributed this singular behaviour to the Fram having “got into dead-water”—a condition which has been frequently met with by ships navigating the Norwegian fords, and occasionally encountered elsewhere. Nansen consulted Prof. Bjerknes (in 1898) on the subject, and that gentleman suggested the explanation that “in the case of a layer of fresh water resting on the top of salt water, a ship will not only produce the ordinary waves at the boundary between the air and the water, but will also generate invisible waves in the boundary between salt water and fresh water;... the great resistance experienced by the ship being due to the work done in generating these invisible waves.” After some discussion between Nansen and Bjerknes it was decided to make a rigorous experimental investigation; the work was entrusted to Dr. Ekman (assistant in the Central Laboratory for the International Study of the Sea at Christiania). Its history and results are recorded in the remarkable memoir under review, which occupies the greater part of the volume in which it appears, and forms an important item in the scientific results of the North Polar Expedition.

The Norwegian North Polar Expedition, 1893–6.

Scientific Results. Vol. v. On Dead Water. By V. Walfrid Ekman. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906.) Price 20s. net.