He said that he feared it had not been possible for him to do so.
According to all he could hear, the winds had been unfavorable all
summer, and the chances were that the adventurer had been carried in an
opposite direction to the one he had intended to take.
In regard to his being rescued and ever reaching the land of the living
again, Lieutenant Peary said he feared the chances were very slight. It
all depended on the place where the balloon had descended.
If it had fallen north of Spitzbergen, it seemed unlikely that he would
ever be heard of again; if, however, the winds had carried it southward,
he might have taken refuge on an ice-pack, and would be floated
southward with it, and eventually rescued.
Dr. Nansen, in his recent famous voyage, proved that there is a strong
current flowing across the Polar Sea. By following this, a ship could be
carried from one side of the Arctic Ocean to the other.
When Dr. Nansen went north it was his hope to get his ship, the _Fram_,
into the pack, or rough ice that was being carried along in this
current, and drift with it across the Pole.
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