The lands of silence E-Book

Clements R. Markham

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The history of the Polar Regions, of those vast areas, difficult of access, which include millions of square miles of land and ocean at either extreme of our planet, is of surpassing interest and importance. It is not only that we here meet with examples of heroism and devotion which must entrance mankind for all time. It is not only that there are dangers to be encountered and difficulties to be overcome which call forth the best qualities of our race. These, no doubt, are the main reasons for the deep interest which polar exploration has always excited. But there are others of almost equal importance. These regions offer great scientific problems. They present wide fields of research in almost all departments of knowledge. They have in the past yielded vast wealth, and have been the sources of commercial prosperity to many communities, and they may be so again. Their history is a history of noble and persevering effort; extending over a thousand years in the Arctic where the work is well-nigh finished, but only just beginning in the Antarctic regions, where it will have to be completed by our descendants.

Leseprobe

THE LANDS OF SILENCE

Sir Clements R. Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S.

printed by George Henry, A.R.A.

THE LANDS OF SILENCE

A HISTORY OF ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

BY

SIR CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385742126

THE LANDS OF SILENCE

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

Mikkelsen

Rasmussen

Koch

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER XLIX

CHAPTER L

CHAPTER LI

CHAPTER LII

CHAPTER LIII

CHAPTER LIV

CHAPTER LV

Borchgrevink

De Gerlache

Nordenskiöld

Bruce

Drygalski

Charcot

Filchner

CHAPTER LVI

CHAPTER LVII

CHAPTER LVIII

CHAPTER LIX

CHAPTER LX

CHAPTER LXI

CHAPTER LXII

CHAPTER LXIII

CHAPTER LXIV

CHAPTER LXV

CHRONOLOGY OF POLAR VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS

BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY OF POLAR VOYAGES AND TRAVELS

II. Antarctic

FOOTNOTES

INDEX

PREFACE

Although there were few subjects in which the late Sir Clements Markham was not interested, it may safely be said that Polar Exploration stood nearest his heart. Not many persons had studied the ground as thoroughly as he; no one was more widely acquainted with its explorers. I was anxious therefore that his recollections of the personality and work of the many distinguished Arctic navigators he had known should not be lost, and some years ago suggested to him that he should record the story of the gradual revealing of the Polar regions to our ken. The idea pleased him, he began his task at once, and when, in January 1916, the sad accident occurred which brought his life unexpectedly to a close, the book, though unrevised, and with one or two chapters unfinished, was nevertheless in a tolerably complete state.

The author’s death would necessarily have delayed the appearance of the work, but the prolonging of the war caused it to be laid aside altogether, and it was not until the beginning of this year that I took it in hand with the object of completing it for publication. So numerous are the works which have been consulted by the author that it was of course impossible for me to verify his facts and dates throughout, and the indulgence of the reader is therefore asked for any errors he may chance to notice. For Chapters LX and LXI, and a great part of Chapter XXXIV, which were merely outlined or left unfinished, the present writer is mainly responsible.

Between Sir Clements and his no less distinguished cousin, Sir Albert Markham, a life-long friendship existed, and the latter did not long survive him, dying soon after he had published his biography. I was fortunate enough, however, before he passed away, to obtain his kindly aid in reading the proofs of this volume, which, owing to his great knowledge of Arctic matters, quite apart from his own wide personal experiences of Arctic travel, was of no little value. The writer would desire here to render his affectionate tribute to the memory of a friend whose charming personality will long be recalled by all those who had the privilege of knowing him.

In the revision of Scott’s journeys I have had the invaluable assistance of Mr Frank Debenham, Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, geologist to Capt. Scott’s last expedition, to whom my very grateful thanks are due. To Mr Edward Heawood, Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, the reader is indebted for the helpful chronological table and bibliography at the end of the volume; and, finally, I have to thank Mr H. A. Parsons, of the Cambridge University Press, for his most efficient assistance in compiling the index.

F. H. H. GUILLEMARD.

Cambridge,October, 1920.

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE ARCTIC REGIONS

The history of the Polar Regions, of those vast areas, difficult of access, which include millions of square miles of land and ocean at either extreme of our planet, is of surpassing interest and importance. It is not only that we here meet with examples of heroism and devotion which must entrance mankind for all time. It is not only that there are dangers to be encountered and difficulties to be overcome which call forth the best qualities of our race. These, no doubt, are the main reasons for the deep interest which polar exploration has always excited. But there are others of almost equal importance. These regions offer great scientific problems. They present wide fields of research in almost all departments of knowledge. They have in the past yielded vast wealth, and have been the sources of commercial prosperity to many communities, and they may be so again. Their history is a history of noble and persevering effort; extending over a thousand years in the Arctic where the work is well-nigh finished, but only just beginning in the Antarctic regions, where it will have to be completed by our descendants.

In approaching the subject it is well to have before our minds the extent of these great areas, the history of which we would grasp and understand. At the polar circle, which is 1410 geographical miles from the centre, they have a periphery of 8460 miles, and each includes 6,000,000 square miles. The Arctic and Antarctic circles are in 66° 32′ North and South, but these parallels are merely conventional. It is more convenient, as will be seen hereafter, to take the Polar regions as beginning at about the 70th parallel, the Sub-arctic and Sub-antarctic regions extending from 60° to 70°, a zone in which the fauna is richer and more varied.

The division of these polar regions into quadrants is useful because it facilitates geographical description and impresses the relative positions of the different parts on the mind. In the Arctic regions a line may be drawn from the Lofoten Islands to Bering Strait, with another crossing it from the head of Hudson’s Bay to Cape Chelyuskin; thus forming four quadrants.

At the present day a fringe of coast lines forming the northern shores of the three great continents, with a deep interior polar sea, are the main features of the Arctic regions, but it was not always so. Looking back into remote geological periods, we have evidence of marvellous changes in the Arctic regions since the globe was a gradually cooling mass of vapour. In this process, extending over vast ages, the polar regions must have been, as they are now, cooler than the equatorial regions, and for the same reason. It was, therefore, in the polar regions that life first became possible, and here the life of the Silurian age arose. There is evidence of a continent in Jurassic and Tertiary (Miocene) times where now there is a polar ocean of great depth, save where Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land exist as the sole remaining fragments of that continent. There is evidence that forests once flourished where now nothing higher than the dwarf willow can exist. There is evidence, too, of tremendous volcanic eruptions, covering great areas with sheets of basalt. In contemplating these mighty revolutions, and the gradual changes through long æons of ages, the leading fact connected with the polar regions is that here life first became possible. Here it was first possible that man could exist. The evidence that the arboreal vegetation of the miocene period originated round the north pole appears to be quite conclusive. The exploration of the Arctic area has disclosed proofs of wondrous secular changes which no imagination, however vivid, could surpass. Alike in the far south, as in the far north, there is food for the imagination—lights thrown here and there on the history of a marvellous past. Such speculations are a fitting introduction to a study of the existing state of things, which has lasted through the historical period, and probably for ages before the dawn of history.

American Quadrant Siberian Quadrant Greenland Quadrant Spitsbergen Quadrant

The two halves of the Arctic regions may be called the Old World or Eastern, and the New World or Western halves. In the former the water flows in, and in the latter it flows out, thus causing a great oceanic circulation not yet fully investigated, but now clearly understood in its general outline.

In the eastern half of the Arctic regions the warm current from the Atlantic flows along the coast of Norway and then bifurcates, one branch going north along the western side of Spitsbergen, the other continuing along the Lapland coast and turning up the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. All the great rivers of Siberia also empty themselves into this eastern half. Thus there is a constant tendency, aided by prevailing winds, for the whole drift from the eastern shores to flow across the Arctic Ocean to the western side.

On the American or western side the tendency is to flow outwards, but there is only one outlet, along the east coast of Greenland. The in-flow is insignificant, Bering Strait is shallow, and but a small volume of water finds its way within the Arctic area by that opening. The flow from all the American rivers, except the Mackenzie and Colville, is at once checked by land in front of their mouths. Hence the whole tendency of aqueous movement is to flow out, while there is only one means of escape.

The consequence of this general drift outwards, with but one corresponding outlet, is very remarkable. The harvests of ice are carried across the Arctic Ocean until they are brought up by the American coast and islands, where they are completely stopped. Then the ice gradually increases from annual snow falls and other causes until it becomes upwards of a hundred feet in thickness. There is some movement in the summer, and a tendency eastward to the north of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, to join the Greenland current. The other straits and channels are too shallow for such ice to pass. In one place alone, between Melville and Banks Islands, there is a drift of this heavy ice into the Parry Archipelago, for a distance of 500 miles, but it is then stopped by King William Island. Otherwise the only outward current for the heavy polar ice is down the east coast of Greenland. Even there the great body of ice comes from the Arctic Ocean itself, and but a small part is due to the escape of ice that has been pressed upon the western land. The outward current of Baffin’s Bay only carries off the ice of one or two years’ growth, which has formed in the bay itself and in the straits and channels leading into it. There is thus a vast accumulation along the outer shores of the western side, and the rising tendency of Arctic lands no doubt increases the difficulty of escape, and the consequent secular and unchanging block all along the western outer shores of the Arctic Ocean.

We may now turn to the quadrants of which mention has already been made on page 4. On the eastern side the first quadrant extends from the Greenwich meridian to 90° E., on an arc of the Arctic Circle, with two converging lines each 1410 miles long. In this quadrant we have Arctic Norway and Russia to Cape Chelyuskin, and the Spitsbergen, Franz Josef, and Novaya Zemlya groups of islands. It may be called the Spitsbergen Quadrant. The second quadrant on the eastern side includes the Siberian coast from Cape Chelyuskin to Bering Strait—the Siberian Quadrant. The third quadrant, being the first on the western side, includes Greenland, Baffin’s Bay, and Baffin, North Devon, and Ellesmere Islands. The fourth quadrant, being the second on the western side, contains the northern coast of the American continent, and the Parry Archipelago. It is the American Quadrant.

It is desirable thus to have before us a general sketch of the Arctic economy before proceeding to the contemplation of the achievements of discoverers. We shall better appreciate their labours, their splendid efforts extending over centuries, if we know what they did not know, the results of their combined victories over the mighty obstacles which Nature placed in their way.

CHAPTER II

ICE AND ICEBERGS

A knowledge of the nomenclature of polar phenomena is an essential preliminary to the study of the history of Arctic adventure. We must know the meanings of words which constantly recur and which form, as it were, the dialect of our subject. We begin then with the names for different forms and appearances of polar ice.

It used to be thought that ice could only be formed in creeks and inlets of the coast. It is now known that young ice forms on the surface of the open sea, and thickens into dense masses, where it is not disturbed by waves. Young ice then is the thin film first formed on the surface of the sea, when the temperature is sufficiently low in the autumn. When it becomes rather thicker it is called bay ice. In a ruffled sea the pieces of bay ice strike each other on every side, becoming rounded and having the edges turned up. This is pancake ice.

In a year, under favouring circumstances, the ice attains a thickness of six feet, in two years of nine feet. Sometimes masses of ice under-run each other, and the result is a thickness of 20 to 50 and even 100 feet.

A field is an expanse of ice of such extent that its termination is not bounded by the horizon. A floe is the same as a field except that its whole extent can be seen. Floe bergs, occurring on the northern shores of the polar ocean, are large masses of sea ice, broken off from ancient floes of great thickness, and forced upon the shore. Ground ice is formed on rivers or shallow inlets while the sea, as a whole, remains unfrozen. Land ice or the land floe is ice attached to the land.

Field ice varies in thickness from 15 to 20 feet. On its surface there is a deposit of several feet of snow which melts in the height of summer, forming numerous fresh-water pools on the ice. Generally an ice-field is traversed by long ridges of hummocks, often 40 to 50 feet high, brought about by the collision of two fields, the irresistible pressure causing them to rise up.

The term floe is applied to pieces which are from half a mile to a mile in diameter. Pieces smaller than a floe are called drift ice. When drift ice is so extensive that its limits cannot be seen, it is called a pack, when the pieces do not touch an open pack, when they are pressed together a close pack. A patch is a collection of drift ice, the limits of which are visible. A stream is a drifting line of drift ice. A tongue is a projecting point of ice, under water. A calf is a mass of loose ice lying under a floe near its margin, and, when disengaged from that position, rising with violence to the surface. Brash ice consists of fragments and nodules, the wreck of other kinds of ice, and sludge is the term applied to smaller pieces, generally saturated by the sea.

A bright white line on the horizon, seen over an ice-field, and denoting more ice, is known as the ice-blink. Over land or large masses of ice it generally has a yellowish tinge. On the other hand a blue streak on the horizon, denoting open water, is called a water sky. A lane or lead is a narrow track of open water between floes or pack ice. Rotten ice is old ice partially melted, and in part honeycombed.

When a ship is forcibly pressed by ice floes on both sides she is said to be nipped, and she is beset when closely surrounded by ice. To bore is to enter the ice under press of sail or steam and to force a way through by separating the masses. Sallying is causing a ship to roll by making the men run in a body from side to side, to relieve her from adhesion of young ice.

An ice foot along a coast line is caused by the accumulation of the autumn snow-fall, as it drifts to the beach, being met by sea-water with a temperature just below the freezing point of fresh water. It is at once converted into ice, forming a solid wall from the bottom of the sea, constantly maintained. The upper surface of an ice foot is level with high water mark. The terrace above this wall, from its edge to the base of the talus, has a width dependent on the land slope. Thus an ice foot will not be found either where there are perpendicular cliffs or low coast lines, but only along sloping high lands under special conditions.

The most striking features in the polar landscape are the icebergs, and they are wholly derived from the land, the large icebergs from Greenland, from Spitsbergen much smaller ones. To understand their origin and movements we must turn to the great continental mass of Greenland. It consists of a vast ice-cap fringed by a strip of mountainous coast, which is penetrated by deep fjords and flanked by numerous off-lying rocks and islands. The area of Greenland is believed to be 512,000 square miles, of which 320,000 form the inland ice, and 192,000 represent the fringing margin of mountains not permanently ice-covered. The widest part is 900 miles across; at Disco in 70° N. it is 480 miles and thence the two coasts converge until they meet in a point at Cape Farewell in 59° 49′ N. The length of Greenland is 1400 miles. The Greenland ice-cap is by far the largest in the northern hemisphere—a continuous covering of snow, névé1, or ice resting on land, known as the “Inland Ice.” From it descend glaciers or rivers of solid ice, coming from their sources in the ice-cap.

The “Inland Ice” of Greenland rises to a height of 8000 feet, and the deep fjords run for 80 or 100 miles before they end at the foot of walls of ice rising abruptly from the water. These walls are the terminations of glaciers from the inland ice, which, constantly throwing off icebergs, are called discharging glaciers. There are eight principal discharging glaciers on the west coast of Greenland2. On the Greenland continent the snow, converted into ice by pressure, has in the course of ages filled all the valleys, covered the mountain tops, and formed a smooth plateau far above them, so that the thickness of the inland ice is measured by thousands of feet. The ice walls at the heads of the discharging glaciers are driven onwards by the force of gravity, the pressure of the superincumbent mass behind them being enormous. In some cases the rate of movement is as much as 28 yards in a day.

A discharging glacier, on reaching the sea, has a thickness of at least a thousand feet. It continues to slide along the bottom until it reaches a point where the depth of the water has sufficient buoyant force to lift it. Still it continues its course. The action of the tides gives rise to fissures in the enormous mass, and at length the foremost part is broken off, and drifts away as an iceberg. The icebergs are discharged from the fjords in vast numbers, and are eventually carried by the current of Baffin’s Bay and Davis Strait into the Atlantic.

The icebergs are alike the grandest and the most beautiful features of the Arctic seas. Only one-seventh of their bulk appears above water, yet they may be hundreds of yards in circumference, and their peaks reach a height of 300 ft. A grander sight can scarcely be conceived than new-born icebergs drifting out from the fjord of their birthplace. When the icebergs drift well out into the open sea the weathering and consequent reduction in size begins. They eventually lose their equilibrium and capsize. The part that has been long under water becomes the upper part, and it is now that the bergs assume their most fantastic shapes. Very often a large piece breaks off from the parent berg, and falls into the sea, churning it up into creamy waves. This is called calving.

The colour of an iceberg is opaque white. Scattered through the mass, and sometimes visible on the surface, are strata of deep blue ice, varying in width from one to several feet. They have an exquisitely lovely effect, contrasting with the deep white of the rest of the berg. These blue stripes may be formed by a filling up of the fissures in the inland ice with water. Such refrigeration of the water in the fissures may be an important agent in setting these great mountains of ice in motion. Sometimes there is a passage right through an iceberg. But it is when a line of icebergs is refracted on the horizon that the polar scenery is converted into a veritable fairy land. Some are raised up into lofty pillars. Again a whole chain of them will assume the appearance of a long bridge or aqueduct, and as quickly change into a succession of beautiful palaces and temples of dazzling whiteness, metamorphosed by the fantastic wand of Nature. When the ice breaks up in summer, the current takes many of the icebergs into the Atlantic.

Effects of Pressure on Antarctic Ice

“Like a scarlet fleece the snowfield spreads

And the icy fount runs free,

And the bergs begin to bow their heads

And plunge and sail in the sea.”

Antarctic Ice.

The difference between the two polar areas—the Arctic an ocean surrounded by continental lands, the Antarctic a continental land surrounded by oceans—causes the differences in the character of the ice with which the sea is laden.

The Antarctic continent is covered with an ice-cap, which along some coasts is buttressed by ice cliffs terminating in the sea, and on coasts facing east is bordered with lofty mountains through which glaciers have forced their way. Throughout the Antarctic regions there is evidence of much more extensive glaciation in former ages. The glaciers are for the most part receding, although there are proofs that some are still moving down to the sea. But there are fixed masses of ice on the sea coast, in the form of cliffs: tongues which could not have been deposited or fed by existing glaciers. At the period of maximum glaciation the climate was much milder, and as the severity of the temperature, due to less precipitation, increased, there must have been sterile ice conditions, and consequent retirement of glaciers and ice-fields. These receding glaciers do not supply bergs; and as the Antarctic icebergs are by far the largest in the world, their origin must be from some other source.

The great ice barrier of Ross fills a vast bay 400 miles across, and at least 300 miles deep, with soundings of about 600 ft. There is no reason why other such barriers should not exist in other parts of the Antarctic regions as yet unknown. These barriers must be the sources of the enormous tabular icebergs which float northward in such vast numbers. Their height is about 200 ft., and their length from one or two to as much as twenty miles.

Large floes are not very common, but there is a great deal of drifting ice, broken off from fixed land ice, which forms closely packed or sailing ice according to the winds. In December this pack ice is usually 300 miles across from 66° to 71° S. in front of the Ross Sea, but it lies further south in the King George IV Sea of Weddell. In February the Ross Sea is navigable, and the pack is scattered.

CHAPTER III

TRIBES AROUND THE POLE

Before we begin to follow the achievements of the great Polar worthies, it seems desirable to take a brief survey of the dwellers on the threshold of the Arctic regions; for here are races who have for ages found homes along the European, Siberian, and American coasts of the Polar Ocean and in Greenland.

To begin with the Spitsbergen quadrant; the northern coast of Norway, now known as Finmarken, and the Kola peninsula face the Polar Sea, but, owing to the warm current from the south, this coast has its bays and inlets clear of ice throughout the year. The coast is lined by numerous islands, several of them of considerable size to the west of the North Cape, and is indented by deep fjords. The most northern point of Europe is in 71° 11′. Inland there is a flat mountain plateau, with a height of some 1500 feet, consisting of stony desert with a few patches of reindeer moss, and some morasses. The plateau is traversed by rivers such as the Tana and the Alten, which force their way through accumulations of gravel before reaching the sea. Pine forests have now receded from the coast to the foot of the gneiss mountains in the interior, and their place is taken by dwarf birch near the sea. The Kola peninsula, known to the Russians as the Murman coast, has high and precipitous granite cliffs and a line of central hills sending the drainage on one side to the Murman, and on the other side to the White Sea.

This is the land of the Lapps, encamped for hunting, and on the sea coast for fishing in summer. Their average height is about 5 ft. 1 in., and they have high cheek-bones, small elongated eyes, wide mouths, little or no beard, and dark straight hair. Their circular tents are made of coarse cloth supported by branch poles of birch and pine. A fire is lighted in the centre, and there is an opening at the top by which the smoke escapes. The Lapps are always wandering for food for their reindeer—moss and birch leaves, and in winter lichen. One family requires a herd of at least 200 animals. The Lapps drive their reindeer in sledges, make cheese from their milk, eat the venison, and make most of their clothing of the skins. These people can march great distances with a short quick step and carry very heavy loads. They live to a considerable age. Their language is Mongolian, and their religion one of magic and witchcraft, which inspired some awe in the minds of the Norsemen who enforced tribute from them.

Eastward from the White Sea the nature of the country changes, and we enter upon the tundras, a Russian name for the bare tracts between the forests to the south, and the shores of the Polar Ocean. The Petchora is the greatest river of the western tundra, flowing northwards along the western spurs of the Ural Mountains towards the gulf of Mezen, where the delta is 120 miles long, the channels winding in a network round islets and banks which shift their positions at every thaw. Fifty miles off the coast lies the island of Kolguev, 50 miles long by 40, entirely composed of sand and small stones, all its deposits being referable to oceanic forces; it is, indeed, essentially a water and ice-formed island.

The region from the White Sea to the Ural Mountains is inhabited by a race called Samoyeds, brachycephalic Mongols with a Finnish admixture. Of short stature, averaging a fraction over 5 feet, they have the short broad Mongolian face, long oblique eyes, high cheek-bones and flat noses. Like the Lapps they are dependent for locomotion, clothes, and food on their herds of reindeer, and they also have dogs for rounding up the deer. Their boots, loose tunics, and winter cloaks are of deer-skin, and the Samoyed hut (choon) is made of birch poles covered with deer-skin for winter, and with strips of birch-bark sewn with sinews in summer. Like the Lapps too, and for the same reason—to drive off mosquitos—they light their fires inside the choon. The Samoyed sledge, drawn by three to five reindeer abreast, consists of two thick runners curved upwards in front, about 9 feet long and 30 inches wide, with four uprights and cross bars. These people worship great numbers of wooden idols grouped round a seven-headed idol of Kesaks. They come to the settlement of Khabarova, near the narrow strait which separates the mainland from the island of Waigatz, during the summer; and they look upon the latter as the holy island on which they wish to be buried.

Eastward of the Samoyed country is the Siberian coast, extending for 2000 miles of longitude along the Polar Ocean, a vast tundra traversed by three great rivers—the Obi and its tributary the Irtish, the Yenisei, and the Lena. To the east of the Lena there are three smaller rivers, the Yena, Indigirka, and Kolyma, but all have their sources far to the south of the Arctic Circle. Some other streams, merely rising in the tundra, flow into the Polar Ocean. These are the Piasina, Taimir, Khatanga, Anabara, and Olenek between the Yenisei and Lena, and the Alaseia between the Indigirka and Kolyma.

The three great rivers have remarkable width and volume. The Yenisei is more than three miles wide for at least a thousand miles, and a mile wide for another thousand. The 200 miles of delta have a width of 20 miles. The sudden melting of the winter accumulations of snow gives rise to floods of great magnitude. Vast harvests of ice are thus annually poured out. The tundra is generally a slightly rolling plain sloping towards the rivers, intercepted by deep river valleys with precipitous sides. The ground is frozen for several hundreds of feet below the surface, and for eight months, from October to May, the tundra is a sheet of snow 6 feet thick. In the summer a wild-looking country appears, full of small lakes, swamps, and streams, swarming with mosquitos and frequented by myriads of birds. The sun brings to life a brilliant Alpine flora, and the tundra has a carpet of grass and mosses.

The Siberian shores of the Polar Ocean forming the edge of the tundra are for the most part low and flat, and Cape Chelyuskin, the northern termination of the Taimir Peninsula in 77° 36′ N., is a low promontory.

This Siberian tundra is the coldest region in the world. The earth, alternating in many places with strata of solid ice, is hard frozen in perpetuity for a depth of several hundred feet. The mean temperature of January is -65°, but the interior is much colder than the sea coast, there being a difference of 20°. At Yakutsk -79° has been recorded, but the greatest natural cold ever measured is -93° at Verkhoyansk, in 67° 34′, near the river Lena.

A great part of the Siberian coast is quite uninhabited, but some hardy tribes extend their wanderings to, and even have permanent settlements on the shores of the polar sea. The Samoyeds, with both reindeer and dog-sledges, extend their wanderings to the Yenisei. The Ostiaks of the Obi and upper Yenisei rivers, numbering 27,000, are Finnish and have close racial affinities with the Samoyeds. They possess a fine breed of dogs, but live chiefly by fishing. The Yuraks of the Yenisei are a branch of the Samoyeds. The Tunguses and Yakuts wander further to the east, as far as the Kolyma.

The mysterious Onkilon or Omoki inhabited the river banks and sea shores of eastern Siberia. “Once there were more hearths of the Omoki on the shores of the Kolyma than there are stars in a clear sky.” They were established in fixed settlements. The remains of their forts, built of tree trunks, and their tumuli are found, especially near the banks of the river Indigirka. Nordenskiöld found the ruins of their house-sites near his winter quarters, and his excavating operations were rewarded by finding a stone chisel with a bone handle, slate knives, bone and slate spear-heads, and a bone spoon. Some centuries ago there was great pressure from the south, and the Onkilon, Omoki, and Chelagi appear to have been driven northwards. The Omoki are said to have gone away over the frozen ocean, but it is not known whither. It is thought that they went to the land said to be visible from Cape Jakan in clear summer weather. At all events they disappeared.

Their place was taken by the tribe called Chukchis, who occupy the Siberian coast from Chaun Bay to Cape Chelagskoi. They are divided into reindeer or inland, and coast Chukchis, each with about 400 tents representing a population of 2000. The Chukchi race is the finest on the Siberian coast, the finest eastward of the White Sea. They are cleanly compared with the Samoyeds, with a higher type of head, more intelligent-looking, and with a reddish-white complexion. They are a hardy and thriving people, with many children, but indolent when not forced to exertion by want of food. They live in large and commodious tents both winter and summer, which are unlike those of any other tribe. The Chukchi tents consist of an outer and an inner tent. The outer one is of seal and walrus skins sewn to each other, and stretched over wooden ribs bound together by thongs. The inner tent is covered with reindeer skins and a layer of moss, and is warmed by oil lamps. The tents are usually pitched on the necks of land separating the strand lagoons from the sea. The boats of the Chukchis are of walrus hide sewn together, and stretched on a frame of wood or bone. Their dog sledges are very light and narrow, with runners of bone covered with layers of ice, and they use shoes for their dogs, to prevent their feet from being cut by the ice. Their snow-shoes, for the winter, have a frame of wood crossed by well-stretched thongs. Expert with lance, bow and arrows, fishing line and nets, they live on the spoils of the chase, to which cloudberries are added in favourable seasons, when the fruit is able to ripen. The Chukchis carve animals and other figures during the long winter nights, and display considerable skill and ingenuity in the conversion of all the means that Nature has placed within their reach to their own uses. They are brave and independent, intelligent and well disposed, and on the whole must be considered to be the finest of the Arctic races.

The dogs used for draught by the Siberian tribes have much resemblance to the wolf. They have long projecting noses, sharp upright ears, and long bushy tails curling over their backs. They vary in colour, and the size of a good sledge dog is about 2 feet 7 inches in height, and 3 feet in length. In summer they dig deep burrows in the ground or lie in the water to avoid mosquitos. The feeding and training of dogs is a special art, but their natural sagacity is extraordinary.

The homes of the Eskimo along the Arctic coast of North America present an aspect which differs, in several respects, from those of the Siberian coast. The American polar rivers are less numerous and of far less volume than those of Siberia, and for the tundras of Siberia are substituted the “barren lands” of North America, which are essentially different. The first consists of frozen earth and ice for an immense depth, the second of low granite and gneiss hills with rounded summits separated by narrow valleys. Except for limited deposits of imperfect peat-earth in the valleys, the surface of the “barren lands” consists of a dry coarse quartzose sand scattered over with granite boulders. The American Arctic coast is faced by islands, with narrow straits intervening, except for 800 miles to Bering Strait where it faces the heavy ice of the Polar Ocean.

This American coast produces edible berries and roots, and on the land are musk oxen, reindeer, wolverines, wolves, foxes, martens, hares, and marmots. Salmon, with other fish, frequent the rivers, and many wading birds, besides ptarmigan and willow grouse, ducks, geese, and guillemots, come to breed. It is a Sub-arctic, not an Arctic region. The whole coast, for 1700 miles, affords the means of subsistence.

Here the hardy little Eskimo race has dwelt for long ages, from the Aleutian peninsula to Hudson’s Bay and Labrador. Their original position is supposed to have been the coast near Bering Strait, from Kotzebue Sound to the Colville river. They have preserved themselves, for generations, by their great faculty of obtaining subsistence by the most ingenious contrivances, and through hereditary skill and perseverance. Their tales and traditions go back for untold years, and with them have been transmitted those methods of hunting and fishing which long practice, through many generations, has perfected. Living mainly on seals, their southern neighbours, the Algonquin Indians, gave these coast people the name of Askikamo or seal-eaters, whence our word Eskimo, but they call themselves Innuit.

The American coast Eskimos have a dozen winter settlements, four of which are never altogether abandoned in the summer. They move about for purposes of bartering and trading, as well as for hunting and fishing; but they have permanent settlements, like that at Point Barrow, with a population of 300 souls in 50 huts. These Eskimos average a height of 5 feet 4 inches, with square shoulders, deep chests, and great muscular strength in the back. The hands are small and thick, and the lower limbs well proportioned. In walking their tread is firm and elastic, the step short and quick. Their hair is black and cut in an even line across the forehead, the complexion fair enough to make the rosy hue of the cheeks visible, giving place to a weather-beaten appearance before middle age. The face is flat and plump with high cheek-bones, forehead low, nose short and flat, eyes dark, sloping obliquely. The mouth is prominent and large, the jaw-bones strong, with firm and regular teeth. The expression is one of habitual good humour, but marred by wearing large lip ornaments of stone.

The dress consists of a frock reaching half down the thighs, with a hood and loose waist-belt, and a tail of some animal attached to it behind. The breeches are tied below the knee over long boots. The clothes are doubled, the inner frock of fawn-skin with the fur inwards, and the outer of full-grown deer-skin with the hair outwards. The winter habitations are entered by a passage 25 feet long, terminating under the floor of the iglu or hut, which is a square chamber from 12 to 14 feet by 8 or 10. The walls are of stout plank, and the roof has a double slope with a square window on one side, covered with a transparent membrane stretched by two pieces of whalebone. The oil burner or fireplace is the most important piece of furniture. It is a flat stone, hollowed on the upper surface, and placed on two horizontal pieces of wood fixed in the side of the hut a foot from the floor. A flame is kept up from whale or seal oil, by means of wicks made of dry moss. The summer tents are conical, of deer or seal-skins, on poles slung together by a stout thong.

In October the sea becomes closed and the men set nets under the ice for fish, also angling with hook and line through ice holes. In January they set out in search of reindeer, hollowing out dwellings in the snow-drifts. Their hunting employment lasts until April, when they return home to get ready their boats for whaling. In summer they are scattered over the country in search of seals and birds.

These Eskimos are described as cheerful and good-humoured, quick-tempered but placable, and with strong conjugal and parental affections. They are shrewd and observant and some exhibit considerable capacity. Far to the eastward, in Boothia, the Eskimos live in snow houses instead of wooden huts. These snow houses are built of large blocks of snow carefully laid and made in the shape of a dome with a square hole for light. The dog sledges of the Boothians are rude, and the runners made of folded seal-skin carefully coated with ice.

Still further east, in Melville Peninsula at the head of Hudson’s Bay, the Eskimos average an inch or two more in height. Instead of lip ornaments, they tattoo the face, arms, and hands, and as with the Boothians their winter habitations are snow huts. Besides dog sledges they have kayaks 25 feet long, with a width of 21 and depth of 10½ inches, but no umiaks or women’s boats. Their dog sledges are heavy, with runners of bone scarped and lashed together. Their weapons are spears, bows and arrows, and bird darts used with a throwing-stick.

Thus the Eskimos spread themselves over a vast extent of country, wandering from Bering Strait to Labrador, a distance of 2000 miles. They adapted themselves to their environment alike in the construction of their dwellings and in their contrivances for fishing and hunting. They are equally at home whether the building material is plank, drift wood, stone or snow; and with the same versatility they adapt their weapons and sledges to the materials within their reach. These Eskimos, by reason of their vigour and courage, of their shrewdness and intelligence, have been among the greatest and most successful wanderers on the face of the earth.

The problem of the peopling of Greenland has been more difficult to solve. It is now clear that the Eskimos, as we call them, who established themselves in Greenland, originally came from the north. We therefore seek for the evidence of movement of Arctic people. The most remarkable migration was that of the Onkilon, Omoki, and other Siberian tribes during a long period of years, owing apparently to pressure from the south. We are told that their abandoned yourts may still be seen near the Indigirka and Cape Chelagskoi. As we have already said, there is a tradition that they wandered away from Cape Jakan to the land in sight in the distance, which we now know to be Wrangell Island, and thence across the ice to the American continent. Finding the coast already occupied they went northwards and eastwards seeking for a home. They must have come in very small parties and at long intervals, for the desolate country could not sustain a large migration. Wandering along the coasts of Banks Island, they came to a region which, owing to the absence of open water during long intervals, was unable to support them.

This is one of the most wonderful migrations ever performed. It is unrecorded. But the long route is strewn with abundant vestiges of marches, during centuries perhaps, over the snow and ice, in search of an abiding-place. Many must have perished. We found relics at frequent intervals from Melville Island to Baffin’s Bay. Their appearance and the lichens growing upon them, justify the conclusion that the movement took place centuries ago3. The relics consist of stone iglus or winter huts, circles of stones to keep down summer tents, stone fox-traps, stone lamps, graves built with stone slabs, and many articles brought from a distance. Among these were portions of the bones of whales used to support the roof of an iglu, other pieces cut into a shape for running melted snow into a vessel, pieces of the bone runners of sledges, and a willow switch 2 feet 3 inches long, covered with lichens4. These vestiges are numerous and continuous from Melville Island to Wellington Channel. Then the traces form two branches; one along the coast of North Devon to Cape Warrender and the north water of Baffin’s Bay, the other up Wellington Channel and the western coast of Ellesmere Island, then across the land to Sir Thomas Smith’s Channel. The most northern traces are near the 82nd parallel, where the framework of a wooden sledge, a stone lamp, and a snow scraper of walrus tusk were found5. Further north, life could not be supported, and the wanderers wended their way southward to Greenland. Perhaps a few followed the musk oxen and reached the east coast.

Thus, we may safely believe, was Greenland first peopled. A further proof is that they have the word umingmak (a musk ox), which does not exist in Greenland, but was met with in the far northern wanderings and the tradition handed down. Very gradually the Eskimos worked their way south along the west coast of Greenland. But they were in the region between Disco Bay and Holsteinborg in a far-off prehistoric period. There have been rich finds of implements in North Greenland (68° to 71°) in deep deposits of great age6. The Eskimo appeared much later in South Greenland.

The Greenland Eskimo differed very little from his congener of the North American coast. He was dolichocephalic, with a short broad face, small slanting eyes, cheeks broad, prominent, and round, hair straight and black, and about the same average height. In Greenland the Eskimos passed the winter in iglus or stone houses, the floors of which are sunk some feet below the surface of the ground. In summer they lived in skin tents, while their property was moved from one hunting encampment to another in their umiaks or women’s boats, which are 30 feet long by 5 wide and 2½ deep, flat-bottomed, and made of seal-skins stretched on a frame. The kayak or hunter’s canoe is the triumph of Eskimo art. It also consists of seal-skin stretched on a frame, but the frame, flat-bottomed and sharp at both ends, is designed on the most perfect lines for speed and buoyancy. It is entirely covered except a hole for the hunter, who ties a waterproof, which is attached all round to the kayak, around his waist when seated. Then, with his double paddle, he faces the wildest seas with dauntless courage, and with his harpoon secures his prey with unerring aim. The Greenland kayak is the most perfect application of art and ingenuity to the pursuit of necessaries of life to be found within the Arctic Circle.

The use of the kayak among the Eskimo of Hudson’s Bay makes it probable that, at one time, there was some intercourse by way of Davis Strait.

Greenlanders dancing

Equally ingenious is the use of an air bladder attached to their harpoons to retard the seal in its rush when struck, and to keep the harpoon floating if the quarry is missed. The point of the harpoon is also so fitted that, when the seal is struck, it slips out of the shaft, obviating the danger of the shaft being broken by the animal’s struggles, and of the barb slipping out of its body. The point is attached to the shaft by a thong.

Seals provide material for clothes, boots, tents, and food. The Greenland dogs are excellent for their purpose and draw sledges 30 or 40 miles a day over smooth ice easily; but the dog as a draught animal is an Asiatic invention. The Greenland sledge consists of a couple of boards for runners, 6 feet long, with cross pieces, and two upright poles for guiding. All is kept together by seal-skin thongs, thus affording elasticity. On smooth ice a pace of 16 miles an hour can be attained, the load for dogs being nearly 500 lb. Eskimo necessary furniture consists of lamps, wooden tubs, dishes, and stone pots. Their arms are bows and arrows, bird darts, javelins, and lances.

The wood required by the Greenland Eskimo is provided by the Arctic current. Flowing down the east coast of Greenland it is diverted by the Gulf Stream, turns round Cape Farewell, and flows up the coast of Greenland bearing abundance of drift wood. Again meeting the Baffin Bay current, it is turned again down into the Atlantic. This drift wood consists of coniferous trees which must come from Siberia. Pieces 60 feet long are found on the coast so far north as 60° 30′, one yielding 3 cords of wood in 63° N., and pieces of 12 to 30 feet are not uncommon.

The Angekoks, like the Shamans of Siberia, are the priests and physicians of the Eskimos, who believe in a great first cause, and in spirits, especially evil spirits, who have to be propitiated. They have myths and traditions, but none that throw any certain light on their origin and history. By far the best account of the arms, tools, and utensils of the Eskimos of West Greenland is by Porsild7.

The most interesting tribe of Eskimos is that which was discovered by Sir John Ross on the north coast of Baffin’s Bay, probably descended from the last Asiatic arrivals. Having no canoes their progress south was stopped at the curving shores of Melville Bay, 300 miles round, nearly all occupied by glaciers coming down to the sea. Ross named them the “Arctic Highlanders.” They had dogs and sledges but no kayaks, consequently there was no communication with the Greenland Eskimos to the south.

The coast from Cape York to Etah, within Smith Sound, is the country of the Arctic Highlanders. It is broken by deep fjords, separated by magnificent headlands, the breeding-places of guillemots and kittiwakes, and the favourite home of millions of little auks or rotches. The Arctic Highlanders are stout well-built little men, thick-set and muscular, with round chubby faces, oblique eyes, and small and very thick hands. With marvellous endurance they are courageous, are ready to close with a bear, and have been known to enter into a conflict of four hours’ duration with a fierce walrus, on weak ice. Without wood, without bows and arrows, without canoes, they still secure abundance of food with their spears and darts. In summer they live in seal-skin tents, in winter their habitations are circular stone huts built at permanent stations along the coast. Their utensils consist of shallow cups made of seal-skin for receiving the water as it melts from a lump of snow and flows down a shoulder blade of a walrus, and of stone lamps. They eat their food raw and in large quantities. Their weapons are a lance of narwhal ivory and a harpoon, and nets to catch the little auks and other birds. The Arctic Highlanders possessed knives of meteoric iron, made by inserting in a row along a slit made in a haft of stone or ivory a number of thin flakes, carefully chipped to a circular form. This meteoric iron came from three huge boulders at the back of Bushnan Island, near Cape York.

The Arctic Highlander wears a shirt of bird-skin neatly sewn together next to the skin, with the soft down inwards, over which there is a loose kapetah or jumper of fox-skin, tight round the neck, where a hood is attached to it. The nessak or hood is lined with bird-skins and trimmed with fox fur. The breeches, called nannuk, are of bear-skin and come down to the knees, and above are just in contact with the kapetah, when the wearer is standing upright. On the feet bird-skin socks are worn with a padding of grass, over which come bear-skin boots. By means of their sledges these hunters can move swiftly to the bear-hunting grounds, and no hunters in the world display more indomitable courage and presence of mind, or more skill and judgment in the exercise of their craft. Their number, when first discovered, was about 300. From an ethnological point of view they are the most interesting of all savage tribes, by reason of their wonderful exodus and their isolation.

We have now passed in review all the dwellers on the Arctic Threshold, from Lapland round the northern shores of Siberia and America to Greenland, considering them with reference to their environment, and we have traced the wanderings of the Onkilon until we find the last remnant of the exodus on the northern shore of Baffin’s Bay. Such a brief survey is a necessary introduction to the history of Arctic enterprise.

CHAPTER IV

ULTIMA THULE

The first tidings of the existence of the Arctic Regions that reached the civilised world were due to the voyage of a Greek navigator of great knowledge and ability. The people of the Ionian city of Phocaea in Asia Minor, scorning to submit to Median domination, had formed a very flourishing commercial colony at Massilia, near the mouth of the Rhône, on the southern coast of Gaul. Strange products reached them from unknown regions to the north, coming over great distances and then down the river Rhône. These products included tin and amber. The interest of the able and imaginative Greeks of Massilia was aroused, and a strong desire was felt that the regions whence this tin and amber came should be discovered. Fortunately the colony possessed a man eminently fitted to conduct an exploring expedition, in the person of Pytheas, an astronomer and mathematician. As it is alleged by Polybius that Pytheas was in poor circumstances, it is probable that the voyage he undertook was not his own venture, but that he was placed in command of a government expedition. It is certain that he prepared for his perilous enterprise with great care. He first carefully fixed his point of departure at Massilia by erecting a large gnomon divided into 120 parts. Observing its shadow at noon of the day of the solstice he found that its length was 42 parts of the gnomon, less one-fifth, that is 41⅘ths to 120, or 209 to 600. This proportion gave 70° 47′ 50″ for the altitude of the sun. The length of the longest day was 15 hours 15 minutes. The obliquity of the ecliptic was found to be 23° 51′ 15″, which was deducted from the altitude. The complement of the result was the latitude of the place less the semi-diameter of the sun. With the semi-diameter added, the result is almost exactly the latitude of the Marseilles observatory, 43° 18′ N. Such accuracy is remarkable. The next step taken by Pytheas was to fix upon the nearest star to the pole as a guide for steering the ship. He found that there was no star on the pole, but that there were two very close to it. These would have been, in those days, β Ursæ Minoris and α Draconis, and Pytheas used one of these as his pole-star. During the voyage the latitudes were obtained by observation of the longest days. This involved long detentions at some of the ports.

The nearest approximation we can get to the date of the voyage of Pytheas is the time of Alexander the Great and of Aristotle, about 330 B.C.8

A Grecian ship in those days was strongly built on regular principles, with sails on the mainmast, and rowing power. A large vessel would be 150 to 170 feet long, with a tonnage of 400 to 500, much larger and more seaworthy than the crazy little Santa Maria in which, 1800 years afterwards, Columbus discovered the New World.

Well provided with all the knowledge of his time, Pytheas weighed anchor and began his coasting voyage by the Pillars of Hercules and the Sacred Promontory, the western limit of the known world. The Greek ships of the time averaged about 50 miles a day. Sailing on along the coast, Oestrymnis (Cape Finistère) was reached, the probable farthest point of Himilco the Carthaginian. The island of Uxisama (Ushant) is mentioned, with an observation for the length of the longest day equal to 49° N. Thence a direct course was shaped for Cantion (Kent) where there was a long stay, and the island of Britain was thus discovered. Here Pytheas made a long journey into the interior, visiting Belerion (Cornwall) and the tin mines, and noting several details respecting the habits and customs of the people, our remote ancestors. In those days Britain was almost entirely in a wild state. The valleys were covered with primeval forests, their lower parts were occupied by vast swamps, and it was only on the downs and hill-ranges that there were gwents or open clearings. Still, the people raised wheat and other cereals, had domestic animals, iron tools and arms, wooden chariots with iron fittings, and ornaments of bronze and gold. Pytheas must have traversed the great forest of Anderida on his way to the tin mines, and he found the people hospitable. They did not use open threshing-floors owing to the rains, but threshed their corn in large barns. They stored the corn in pits under ground, and made fermented liquor from barley, which they used as wine. Their houses were of wood and thatch, and Pytheas mentions the war chariots, but adds that the chiefs were generally at peace with each other.

When Pytheas returned to his ship in some haven of Cantion he proceeded northwards. His next observation gave 17 hours as the length of the longest day. This would be in latitude 54° 2′ N., somewhere in the neighbourhood of Flamborough Head. Still coasting to the north in his great voyage of discovery, Pytheas came to a point at the northern end of Britain which, by a similar method of finding the latitude, must have been Tarbat Ness in Ross-shire. As he advanced towards the Arctic Circle he found that the cultivated grains and fruits and almost all the domesticated animals gradually disappeared. The people in the far north were reduced to living mainly on herbs and roots. The intrepid explorer still pressed onwards to discover the northernmost point of the British Isles. Coasting along the shores of Caithness and the Orkney Islands he finally arrived, conjecturally, at Unst Island, the northernmost of the Shetland Isles. Pytheas gives the name of Orcas to this extreme point of the British Isles, a name which in later times was transferred to the Orkneys or Orcades.

It was at Orcas that Pytheas received information of an Arctic land called Thule9, at a distance of six days’ sail, and near the frozen ocean. There was no night there in the summer solstice. During one season the night was continuous, and during another it was continual day. Pytheas does not say that Thule was an island, nor that he had been there. It was possibly the coast of Norway in the neighbourhood of Alstenoe and the Vefsen-fjord. Pytheas also received reports of the physical aspect of the Arctic region beyond Thule. His account has been turned into nonsense by Strabo, copying from the explorer’s adverse critic Polybius. Yet even as we have it, the real meaning is clear enough. It is a good description of a fog at the edge of broken-up pack ice and sludge, “which can neither be travelled over nor sailed through.”