The Book of the Ocean

by Ernest Ingersoll

Almost three hundred years ago the existence of islands far to the southward of any continents became known to navigators, who were driven thither by bad weather, and little by little was added to the map of this desolate region; but it was not until 1772 that any one went into that terrible Antarctic sea for the express purpose of a survey. This man was the intrepid Captain Cook, and though he sailed a third of the way around the globe in his efforts to find an entrance through the icy barrier, he could never penetrate beyond 71° south latitude, which is equal to North Cape, or the town of Upernavik, in the Arctic region. Later captains did little better, until 1841, when Sir James Ross, in his ships Erebus and Terror,—the same vessels which afterward met their destruction with the ill-fated Franklin expedition,—skirted the edge of the thick ice that everywhere clothed the land, though it was midsummer, and finally reached the base of the southernmost land yet known on the globe—a magnificent mountain-chain stretching away to the south from latitude 78° 10´.

The most conspicuous point of all this range of polar mountains, which rises from an unexplored continent or great island called Victoria Land, is the volcano Mt. Erebus. It was in eruption at the time of Ross’s visit, and the explorer tries to tell us of the splendor of its display when the wide glistening waste of snow and the deep blue of the ocean and the starry sky are lit up by the column of fire hurled thousands of feet heavenward from its crater: but who can picture the grandeur of such a scene! This volcano is about 12,400 feet high, and an extinct neighbor, Mt. Terror, is still higher; while a third peak, Mt. Melbourne, exceeds 15,000 feet in altitude, and like all the rest is covered with everlasting snow and glaciers from the tempestuous water’s edge to its lonely crest.

Meager as this information is, it is about all we know of the surface of the globe within the Antarctic circle; and it will be extremely difficult to learn much more. In a latitude much farther from the pole than that where in the north vegetation is abundant, and men and animals live all the year round, the severity of the Antarctic climate cuts off all life, and constantly seals the water under a cap of ice. The coasts and outlying islands thus far examined appear to be wholly volcanic, often composed of nothing but alternate layers of ashes and ice; but the Challenger staff dredged up from the edge of the ice south of the middle of the Indian Ocean pieces of granite-like and other rocks, such as belong to land regularly formed; so that probably the whole uplift does not consist of volcanic materials; and, furthermore, rocks containing fossil plants have been found on some of the southernmost islands which show that in past ages—the period of the coal deposits—the climate of that end of the world was mild enough to support forests of trees and, doubtless, a large variety of herbage and animals. Now most of the coast is unapproachable on account of a border of sea-ice, or else cliffs of moving land-ice (glaciers) that give off the flat, table-topped icebergs characteristic of the south polar waters. No trace of any land animal—except visiting sea-fowl—has been found, and only a little of the simplest plants (lichens); nor is this surprising when we learn that the highest noonday heat of summer is only a little above the freezing-point.

Why this intense cold and dreadful desolation exists so much farther from the pole in the southern than in the northern hemisphere, I need hardly explain to you; for you will recall that in the north the continents are so broad as to form almost an unbroken wall about the narrow polar sea, confining its cold waters, warming the air by wide radiation, and guiding the heated flood of the Gulf Stream straight into the northern sea. In the southern hemisphere, on the other hand, an immense breadth of ocean south of latitude 40° is broken by no land of any account, and the southward flowing warm water from the equator becomes spread out so thin upon the vast surface that it is rapidly chilled. It is now generally believed, as has been hinted, that the south polar region is a continental mass, deeply buried in an ice-sheet that is ever fed in the center as fast as it wastes away at the circumference; for the prevailing winds there tend toward the pole from all sides, and carry loads of moisture to be condensed and fall in ceaseless snows.

ICE-CLIFFS AND TABLE-TOPPED BERGS, CHARACTERISTIC OF THE ANTARCTIC REGION.

The Antarctic seas, however, are by no means lifeless, but abound not only in fishes,—cod are said to throng in these waters in prodigious numbers,—but several varieties of whales, dolphins, and their kin (which will be described in one of the later chapters), and many kinds of seals, notably the huge sea-elephant, now becoming rare elsewhere. Then, too, the Antarctic islands and headlands are the resort of enormous flocks of certain sea-birds, all different from the Arctic species of their families, which subsist upon the fishes and less creatures in the water, and go to the lonely shores outside the ice-cap only for rest and to make their nests. Of all these the penguins are most numerous and most hardy, and a whole chapter might easily be given to their quaint appearance and quainter ways. It also appears probable that certain migratory birds—especially beach-feeding kinds—regularly visit the Antarctic continent in summer from Patagonia, and breed there.

Now what has been gained by all the expense, exertion, and hardship of polar exploration? What has been the charm that has led wise and brave men to overcome terrific obstacles, and turn again with deeper and deeper longings toward the mystic icy regions? Lieutenant Maury has given one answer: “There icebergs are framed and glaciers launched. There the tides have their cradle: the whales their nursery. There the winds complete their circuits, and the currents of the sea their round in the wonderful system of interoceanic circulation. There the Aurora Borealis is lighted up, and the trembling needle brought to rest; and there, too, in the mazes of that mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power and vast influence upon the well-being of man are continually at play.... Noble daring has made Arctic ice and waters classic ground. It is no feverish excitement nor vain ambition that leads man there. It is a higher feeling, a holier motive, a desire to look into the works of creation, to comprehend the economy of our planet, and to grow wiser and better by the knowledge.”

To polar explorers we owe not only the discovery of the waters, coasts, and archipelagoes that now are accurately outlined upon our maps within the Arctic and Antarctic circles, but vast and valuable products—whale-fisheries, seal-fisheries, cod-fisheries, and many other additions to the wealth of the world from the sea, while the Arctic lands have yielded furs and other valuable things in great quantity. The study of the people living under those adverse northern conditions has been highly instructive, assisting us to reconstruct the life in the primitive world; and what we have learned from the records of the Arctic rocks has thrown a bright and unexpected light upon the antiquity of the globe.

To studies of the ocean and atmosphere in very high latitudes science is largely indebted for new facts in magnetism, in the movements of the air and causes of climate, in the formation and behavior of ice and icebergs, in the action of tides and ocean-currents, and in many other departments of knowledge, all of which have been made of use especially to the navigator. Nor has this cost over much. Attention has been called to every casualty, and the romantic light of adventure has brought into high relief all the hardships and sometimes horrors of Arctic experience; but the records show that the average of loss and suffering in Arctic work is not greater than that of ordinary seafaring and naval careers. Sir Leopold M’Clintock has stated publicly that during the thirty-six years when Great Britain was most active in polar research, she lost only one expedition and 128 persons out of forty-two successive expeditions sent out, and never lost a sledge-party out of a hundred that made overland journeys.