Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/206

202 was the current that carried the Fram across the Polar Basin from the New Siberian Islands to the north-west of Spitsbergen. Now these easterly and north-easterly winds that have been spoken of are the outflowing winds of the Eurasian anticyclone, as are the north-west winds blowing across the Himalayas and continuing as the north-east monsoons of India, and which prevail during January and February over India, that is, during the same time as the easterly and north-easterly breezes of the Arctic Regions. Now January and February is the period of the greatest intensity and extension of the great anticyclone, an intimate study of which from the North Pole to the tropic cannot fail to be of the greatest possible value for an accurate knowledge of that part of the terrestrial globe which contains about three-quarters of the inhabitants of the world. The ice movements which troubled Peary, and made his earlier attempts futile, and added difficulty and grave risk to his last successful journey to the North Pole, are also ultimately caused by the winds flowing from the great winter anticyclone of northern Asia.

This one example is a striking illustration of the value of Arctic exploration from a meteorological standpoint. During any northern winter if this Eurasian anticylcone [sic] from some cause