There are questions connected with the migrations of birds which can be elucidated only by an exploration of the Unknown Region. Multitudes which annually visit our shores in the winter and spring, return in summer to the far North. This is their regular custom, and obviously would not have become a custom unless it had been found beneficial. Therefore we may assume that in the zone they frequent they find some water which is not always frozen; some land on which they can rest their weary feet; and an adequate supply of nourishing food.
From Professor Newton we adopt, in connection with this consideration, a brief account of the movements of one class of migratory birds,—the Knots.[1]
The knot, or sandpiper, is something half-way between a snipe and a plover. It is a very active and graceful bird, with rather long legs, moderately long wings, and a very short tail. It swims admirably, but is not often seen in the water; preferring to assemble with its fellows on the sandy sea-shores, where it gropes in the sand for food, or fishes in the rock-pools and shallow waters for the small crustaceans. It is known both as the red and the ash-coloured sandpiper, because it changes the colour of its plumage according to the season of the year; a bright red in summer, a sober ashen-gray in winter. Now, in the spring the knot seeks our island in immense flocks, and after remaining on the coasts for about a fortnight, can be traced proceeding gradually northwards, until it finally takes leave of us. It has been noticed in Iceland and Greenland, but not to stay; the summer there would be too rigorous for its liking, and it goes further and further north. Whither? Where does it build its nest, and hatch its young? We lose all trace of it for some weeks: what becomes of it?
Towards the end of summer back it comes to us in larger flocks than before, and both old birds and young birds remain upon our coasts until November, or, in mild seasons, even later. Then it wings its flight to the south, and luxuriates in blue skies and balmy airs until the following spring, when it resumes the order of its migrations.
Commenting upon these facts, Professor Newton infers that the lands visited by the knot in the middle of summer are less sterile than Iceland or Greenland; for certainly it would not pass over these countries, which are known to be the breeding-places for swarms of water-birds, to resort to regions not so well provided with supplies of food. The food, however, chiefly depends on the climate. Wherefore we conclude that beyond the northern tracts already explored lies a region enjoying in summer a climate more genial than they possess.
Do any races of men with which we are now unacquainted inhabit the Unknown Region? Mr. Markham observes that although scarcely one-half of the Arctic world has been explored, yet numerous traces of former inhabitants have been found in wastes which are at present abandoned to the silence and solitude. Man would seem to migrate as well as the inferior animals, and it is possible that tribes may be dwelling in the mysterious inner zone between the Pole and the known Polar countries.
The extreme points reached by our explorers on the ice-bound Greenland coast are in about 82° on the west, and 76° on the east side; these two points lying about six hundred miles apart. As man has dwelt at both these points, and as they are separated from the settlements further south by a dreary, desolate, uninhabitable interval, it is not an extravagant conjecture that the unknown land to the north has been or is inhabited. In 1818 a small tribe was discovered on the bleak Greenland coast between 76° and 79° N.; their southward range being bounded by the glaciers of Melville Bay, and their northward by the colossal mass of the Humboldt Glacier, while inland their way is barred by the Sernik-sook, a great glacier of the interior. These so-called Arctic Highlanders number about one hundred and forty souls, and their existence “depends on open pools and lanes of water throughout the winter, which attract animal life.” Wherever such conditions as these are found, man may be found.
We know that there are or have been inhabitants north of the Humboldt Glacier, on the very threshold of the Unknown Region; for Dr. Kane’s expedition discovered the runner of a sledge made of bone lying on the beach immediately to the north of it. The Arctic Highlanders, moreover, cherish a tradition that herds of musk-oxen frequent an island situated far away to the north in an iceless sea. Traces of these animals were found by Captain Hall’s expedition, in 1871–72, as far north as 81° 30′; and similar indications have been noted on the eastern side of Greenland. In 1823, Captain Clavering found twelve natives at Cape Borlase Warren, in lat. 79° N.; but when Captain Koldewey, of the German expedition, wintered in the same neighbourhood, in 1869, they had disappeared, though there were traces of their occupancy, and ample means of subsistence. Yet they cannot have gone southward, owing to insuperable natural obstacles; they must have moved towards the North Pole.
We have thus indicated some of the results which may be anticipated from further researches in the Unknown Region. It is not to be forgotten, however, that “the unexpected always happens,” and it is impossible to calculate definitely the consequences which may ensue from a more extensive investigation. “Columbus,” it has been justly said, “found very few to sympathize with him, or perceive the utility of the effort on his part to go out into the unknown waste of waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, in search of a new country. Who can, at this time, estimate the advantages which have followed upon that adventure? If now it should be possible to reach the Pole, and to make accurate observations at that point, from the relation which the Earth bears to the sun and to the whole stellar universe, the most useful results are very likely to follow, in a more thorough knowledge of our globe.”
The reader has now before him the particulars which will enable him to form an idea of the extent and character of the undiscovered region of the Pole. Roughly speaking, it is bounded by the 80th parallel of latitude on the European side, except at a few points where our gallant explorers have succeeded in crossing the threshold; on the Asiatic side it descends as low as 75°; and to the west of Behring Strait as low as 72°. Thus, it varies from 500 or 600 to 1400 or 1500 miles across. Below these parallels, and bounded by the Arctic Circle, or, in some places, by the 60th parallel, extends a vast belt of land and water which is generally known as the Arctic or Circumpolar Regions. These have been more or less thoroughly explored; and it is to a description of their principal features, their forms of animal and vegetable life, and their natural phenomena, that we propose to devote the present volume.