“If the sea to the east of Franz-Josef Land should not be broken by larger groups of islands, or by masses of land, but be a vast range of ocean, the winds would be free from the influence of land, and blow in a north-easterly direction, and exhibit, so to speak, the phenomenon of a Polar north-east trade wind. If it should be the case that north-east winds prevail to the north of the 78th or 79th degree of north latitude, and, at the same time, south-west winds to the south of that same degree, the notion of a sea-current must be dismissed, and a revolving movement in the ice assumed, in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock. The observations of Weyprecht on these winds establish their circulatory character. The curve of deviation in the course of the _Tegetthoff_ seems to be in harmony with this assumption. But these suppositions cannot be accepted, until observations be made on the winds to the south of 79° N. L. at the same season of the year with those which were so successfully made by Weyprecht to the north of this degree. “The following arguments, however, would seem to favour the supposition of the existence of a sea-current. The curve at the commencement of its deviation corresponds pretty nearly with the direction which the Gulf Stream would take after passing round Norway, and in its further course with that current, which comes out of the Sea of Kara between Novaya Zemlya and Cape Taimyr, and which undoubtedly exists, though its course has to be more accurately determined. “However small may be the value we assign to the winds in explanation of the deviation in the _Tegetthoff’s_ course, it is at any rate impossible to ascribe those phenomena to the influence of the coast formation. We must, therefore, assume either, that the different directions of the wind produce a constant circulation of the ice in the sea to the north of 79°; or that currents known to exist in this and contiguous seas cannot be excluded from the small part of the ocean lying between Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land.” From these and other grounds the Vice-Admiral Baron von Wüllersdorf draws the following conclusions:— “It is probable that there exists a sea-current in the seas between Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land; that at any rate, its existence cannot positively be denied, although the prevailing winds may produce similar phenomena. “That there is a great probability that the Ocean stretches far to the north and east beyond the eastern end of Novaya Zemlya.” [Illustration: SOUNDING IN THE FROZEN OCEAN.]