A DESERT OF ICE IN THE ARCTIC REGION.
It is important to remember that the northern shores of Europe, Asia, and America are skirted by the parallel of 70°, and that the belt between the 70th and 80th parallels, having been partially explored by the seamen and travellers of various nations, intervenes as a kind of neutral ground between the known and the unknown. We may, indeed, formulate our statement thus; from the Pole to the 80th degree stretches the unknown; from the 80th to the 70th, the partially known; while, south of the 70th, we traverse the lands and seas which human enterprise has completely conquered.
The Circumpolar Zone includes the northernmost portions of the three great continents, Europe, Asia, and America; and by sea it has three approaches or gateways: one, through the Northern Ocean, between Norway and Greenland; another, through Davis Strait,—both these being from the Atlantic; and a third, through Behring Strait,—the entrance from the Pacific.
It will be seen that the Circumpolar Regions, as they are now understood, and as we shall describe them in the following pages, extend to the south of that imaginary line drawn by geographers round the North Pole, at a distance from it equal to the obliquity of the ecliptic, or 23° 30’. Within this circle, however, there is a period of the year when the sun does not set; while there is another when he is never seen, when a settled gloom spreads over the face of nature,—this period being longer or shorter at any given point according as that point is nearer to or further from the Pole.
But as animal and vegetable life are largely affected by climate, it may be justly said that wherever an Arctic climate prevails there we shall find an Arctic or Polar region; and, hence, many countries below even the 60th parallel, such as Kamtschatka, Labrador, and South Greenland, fall within the Circumpolar boundary.
The waters surrounding the North Pole bear the general designation of the Arctic Ocean. But here again it is almost impossible to particularize any uniform limit southward. It joins the Pacific at Behring Strait in about lat. 66° N., and consequently in this quarter extends fully half a degree beyond the Arctic Circle. At Scoresby Sound, as at North Cape, where it meets the Atlantic, it is intersected by the parallel of 71°, and consequently falls short of the Arctic Circle by about 4° 30’.
In the Old World, the Polar Ocean, if we include its gulfs, extends, in the White Sea, fully two degrees beyond the Arctic Circle; while at Cape Severo, the northernmost point of Asia, in lat. 78° 25’ N., it is 11° 55’ distance from it. Finally, in the New World it is everywhere confined within the Circle; as much as 5° at Point Barrow, about 7° 30’ at Barrow Strait, and about 3° at the Hecla and Fury Strait.
We may add that, so far as temperature is concerned, the great gulfs known, in memory of their discoverers, as Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, and Hudson Bay, are portions of the Arctic Ocean.
Of the more southerly area of this great ocean, the only section which has been adequately explored to a distance from the continent, and in the direction of the Pole, is that which washes the north-east of America. Here we meet, under the collective name of the Polar Archipelago, with the following islands:—Banks Land, Wollaston Land, Prince Albert Land, Victoria Land, Prince Patrick Island, Princess Royal Islands, Melville Island, Cornwallis Island, North Devon, Beechey Island, Grinnell Land, and North Lincoln. Further to the east lie Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen Island, Novaia Zemlaia, New Siberia, and the Liakhov Islands. The chief straits and inlets are Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Smith Sound, Regent Inlet, Hecla and Fury Strait, Wellington Channel, and Cumberland Sound; while further westward are Belcher Channel, Melville Sound, M’Clintock Channel, Banks Strait, and Prince of Wales Strait.