Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/189

Rh when the museum at Christiania received a valuable collection of Eskimo implements from East Greenland, collected by the expedition of Captain Holm and Lieutenant Garde. He then gave his "throwing stick" to the museum, as probably coming from the same region. To his surprise, it was found entirely different from the East Greenland implements, and the Norwegian traveler Jakobsen, who had spent many years in Alaska, suggested the resemblance to the Alaskan pattern, which gave rise to the notice that I saw in Naturen.

So, from all this, two things were pretty certain: First, that the stick was made in Alaska; and, second, that it was picked up on the beach at Godthaab. Now, how could it have got there? It surely could not have drifted round by way of the Northwest Passage, for that way is barred by such a network of islands that the stick would undoubtedly have been stranded long before it reached Greenland.

Some people have said, "A sailor on an American whaleship might have brought it home with him from Bering Sea, and taken it to Greenland," but any one who is familiar with the customs of American whalemen knows that the same ships never go to the North Pacific and to Davis Strait, and that very few men in the fleet have been to both regions. Moreover, the American whaleships keep over on the other side of the strait. It is very unlikely that the stick could have reached Godthaab in that way. As for the suggestion which has been made that it was dropped somewhere off the Atlantic coast from a ship coming home to New Bedford from Bering Sea, that may be dismissed in a few words. If it were dropped near shore, it would fall into the inshore current and drift south; while if it were dropped farther off, the Gulf Stream would take it to Iceland or Norway.

But it is well known that a current sets north through Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and that north of the strait the current moves steadily westward, as shown by the drift of the Jeannette. It is very easy to believe that the stick drifted in this way, keeping on till it met the current that sweeps down between Iceland and Greenland, and then turned northward again round Cape Farewell. Indeed, it is hard to see how it could have got there otherwise.

So this is the way that the finding of this little piece of wood came to be a link in the chain of evidence that led Dr. Nansen to form his adventurous plan of trusting his stout little vessel to the current which he believed would take him over the very pole.

For my part, I believe that he was right, and that, even if the present rumor turns out to be untrue, there is a very good prospect that he will attain his object.