ARCTIC LANDS Geology.--The northern parts of Europe, Asia and America almost encircle the Arctic sea. Beyond these Arctic mainlands lie various islands and island groups on the continental shelf. All these are relics of more extensive land areas and most of them show geological continuity with the nearest continental land. Some of them, such as Nicholas Land and the De Long islands, have been inadequately explored from a geological standpoint. In ice-covered lands the geological structure can only be inferred from the marginal rocks, and in few Arctic lands does the snow fall allow geological exploration except for a few weeks in summer. While Archaean rocks predominate in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, rocks of palaeozoic and later ages are found exclu sively in the Eurasian Arctic islands. For details see GREENLAND, SPITSBERGEN, etc. Present volcanic activity is rare. Beerenberg in Jan Mayen is an active volcano. Warm springs occur in Wood bay, Spitsbergen. Past volcanic activity is notable in the Tertiary basalts of Greenland, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land and the New Siberian Islands. There is clear geological evidence of a warmer Arctic climate during tertiary times, but during the Pleistocene ice age climate was more severe than at present and probably most Arctic land, except the Canadian Arctic islands, was ice covered.
Most Arctic hills are edged by slopes or scree of coarse or fine debris from the weathering of the rocks above. This loose ma terial freezes together in winter, and though loose on the surface in summer is not carried away by running water, except where deep gullies cut across it. These screes hide the solid rock and make geological work difficult. Raised beaches are of frequent occurrence and deltaic lands are forming in many fjords.
The original people of the north of Europe are the nomadic Lapps who live by fishing and reindeer breeding, and further east in Russia and western Siberia the Samoyedes who follow the same mode of life. They also have small settlements on Novaya Zemlya. In eastern Siberia the chief Arctic people are the Chukchee, reindeer herders, between the Kolima mouth and Bering strait, but other tribes touch or occa sionally visit the northern coast. American Indians wander north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska and Canada. Eskimo (q.v.) extend from eastern Siberia and Alaska to Ungava, Labrador and Green. land. They appear to be dying out by contact with civilization in spite of the protective measures of the Canadian and Danish gov ernments. Practically all the Eskimo of west Greenland, except the Polar Eskimo or Arctic Highlanders north of Melville bay, have Danish blood in their veins. There has never been a na tive population in Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land and the New Siberian Islands.
very full references to polar exploration see Bibliography.--FQr very full references to polar exploration see A. W. Greely, Handbook of Polar Discoveries (4th ed., 191o), and for a nearly complete bibliography of earlier polar literature see J. Cha vanne and others, The Literature of the Polar Regions (1878) ; F. Nan sen, In Northern Mists (191I) for exploration up to the 16th century ; J. Demice, Les Expeditions Polaires depuis 1800: Liste des Etats-Major (1910 covers both Arctic and Antarctic ; W. Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions (182o) ; M'Clintock, A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin, etc. (1859) ; G. S. Nares, Voyage to the Polar Sea, 1875-76 (1878) ; A. H. Markham, The Great Frozen Sea (1878, etc.) ; J. Richardson, The Polar Regions (1861) ; numerous pa pers in Petermanns Mitteilungen from 187o onwards; C. R. Markham, The Threshold of the Unknown Region (1873) ; Die zweite deutsche Nordpolfahrt enter Fiihrung des Capt. K. Koldewey (1873-74) ; Man ual of the Natural History, Geology, and Physics of Greenland and the neighbouring Regions, published by the Admiralty (1875) ; J. Payer, New Lands within the Arctic Circle (1876) ; E. Bessels, Scien tific Results of the U.S. Arctic Expedition, C. F. Hall commanding, vol. i. (1874) ; Die amerikanische Nordpol-Expedition (1879) ; The Norwegian North Atlantic Expedition, 1876-78, especially: H. Mohn, "The North Ocean: its Depths, Temperature and Circulation" (1887) ; A. E. Nordenskjold, The Voyage of the "Vega" (1881) ; several reports on the six voyages of the "Willem Barents" in the summers of 1878 to 1883, published in Dutch (1879-87) ; De Long, The Voyage of the "Jeannette" (1883) ; Otto Pettersson, "Contributions to the Hydrog raphy of the Siberian Sea," in Vega-Expeditionens vetenskapliga lakt tagelser, vol. ii. (1883) ; A. W. Greely, Three Years of Arctic Service (1886) ; C. Ryder, "Den Ostgronlandske Expedition," Meddelelser om Gronland, pt. xvii. (1895) ; Isforholdene i de Arktiske Have, with charts (annual) ; The Danish Ingolf Expedition; see especially M. Knudsen, "Hydrography," in vol. i. (1899) ; F. Nansen, Farthest North (1897) ; The Norwegian North Polar Expedition, 1893-96: Scientific Results; Duke of the Abruzzi, On the Polar Star (19o3) ; O. Sverdrup, New Land (19o4) ; Axel Hamberg, "Hydrographische Arbeiten der von A. G. Nathorst geleiteten schwedischen Polarexpedition 1898," Kongl. Svenska vet.-akad. Handlingar, vol. xli. No. 1 (1906) ; F. Nan sen, "Northern Waters," Videnskabs Selskabets Skrifter, No. 3 (1906) ; "Spitsbergen Waters," ditto No. 2 (1915) ; B. Helland-Hansen and F. Nansen, "The Norwegian Sea," Report on Norwegian Fishery and Marine Investigations, vol. ii. No. 2 (1909) ; Duc d'Orleans, Croisiere oceanographique dans la Mer du Gronland en 1905 (1909) ; J. M. Hulth, "Swedish Arctic and Antarctic Explorations, 1758-1910, Bibliog raphy," K. Svenska Vetens Arsbok 1910 (Uppsala, 191o) ; R. F. Peary, The North Pole (191o) ; R. Amundsen, The North-West Passage (1909) and The First Flight Across the Arctic Ocean (1927) ; R. A. Bartlett and R. T. Hale, The Last Voyage of the Karluk (1916) ; V. Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo (1913), The Friendly Arctic (1921) and The Northward Course of Empire (1922) ; K. Rasmussen, Greenland by the Polar Sea (1921) and Across Arctic America (1927); Reports of the Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-18 (1919, with valu able bibliographies) , especially T. Holm, "Morphology, Synonymy and Distribution of Arctic Plants" (V.B. 1922) and J. J. O'Neill, "Geology of the Arctic Coast of Canada" (XI. A. 1924) ; D. B. Macmillan, Four Years in the White North (1925) ; F. Nansen, Hunting and Adventure in the Arctic (1925) ; W. H. Hobbs, The Glacial Anticyclones (1926), with bibliography of Arctic meteorology; O. Nordenskjold, Nord-und Siidpolarlander (1926) ; R. N. Rudmose Brown, The Polar Regions (1927); H. V. Sverdrup, Trl Aar i Isen med Maud (Oslo, 1927) ; Byrd, Commander Richard E., Skyward (1928) ; Wilkins, Sir George Hubert, Flying the Arctic (1928) . (R. N. R. B.) It is a commonplace of modern geography that there are two main kinds of climate, continental and insular, with the sea coasts of continents partaking somewhat of the insular qualities. In continental climates there are greater extremes of heat and cold than on islands. It follows that the most intense cold in the Arctic is nowhere near either the mathematical centre, called the North Pole, or the sea-ice centre, called the Pole of Inacces sibility (84° N. lat., 160° W. long.) . In Arctic Alaska, the cold est weather is, so far as we know, in the Yukon basin ; in Canada it is in Yukon Territory; and in Siberia it is in the province of Yakutsk. All these places have been inhabited for a quarter of a century or more by Europeans who are not known to have been materially discouraged in their work by the mere disagreeable ness of the climate, although they have been handicapped by the frozen ground and in other things that result directly from the cold.
The coldest known region of the north ern hemisphere is the province of Yakutsk, in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, where temperatures colder than 90° F below zero have been reliably recorded—and that on the edge of cereal farming, for the great Russian atlas issued just before the World War indicates that wheat, barley, oats and rye are cultivated, if not at the very cold pole of the Northern Hemisphere, at least within a comparatively short distance from it, where the tem perature frequently drops lower than 8o° below zero. This is colder than any known region in Arctic Alaska or Arctic Canada. We may conclude, then, that winter cold does not frighten away Europeans through its mere disagreeableness nor render it im possible for them to make a living.
No records apparently authentic of temperatures colder than 6o° F below zero are available from any of the Arctic islands, and it is almost certain that they do not occur. The coldest spells that do occur come when the wind blows from the interiors of the islands. It seems unlikely, therefore, that the tempera ture ever drops as low as 55° below zero at the North Pole, the Pole of Inaccessibility, or, indeed, at any point on the Arctic sea.
There is probably no spot on a low land in the continental Arctic, whether in Asia or America, that does not occasionally have a summer temperature warmer than 8o° F in the shade. Or, if there is such a place, it must be on a peninsula, or on a narrow coastal strip between ice-covered mountains and the sea. Many places in the continental Arctic have occasional temperatures above 85° in the shade, and at least one Arctic weather bureau station, that of the U.S. Govern ment at Ft. Yukon, Alaska, has a record of ioo° in the shade. The slowness of the public to realize that there is such great summer heat in the Arctic is due partly to the prevalence of the ancient view that all the Arctic is always cold, and partly to the reports of travellers whose entire Arctic experience has been on the ocean or on a sea-coast.
The reason for the great mid-summer heat on Arctic lowlands is, of course, that the sun delivers an adequate number of heat units per day to account for it. The ordinarily accepted figures are 3 or 4% more at the North Pole than at the equator for the top of the atmosphere and 3 or 4% less for sea-level. This means that you would have "tropical" heat at any place in the Arctic where the sun's rays strike a dark surface and where there is no local reservoir of "cold" to neutralize it. The places, therefore, that do show a "tropical" heat are on lowlands that are sheltered from ocean breezes and from winds that come from ice-covered mountains. If the length of summer is measured by the season during which streams flow unfrozen and during which certain insects are alive and more or less active, the Arctic sum mer would range from a maximum of about five and a half months in such places as the north shore of Great Bear lake, to perhaps two months in places like Borden island.
But an important thing to remember is that there is a direct dependence of animals on plant life and that plants measure their summer not by the calendar but by the number of hours of sunlight. At Ft. Yukon, Alaska, for instance, on a day that varies from, let us say, 65° at the coldest to 95° at the warmest (in the shade), there would he approximately as much growing time as in two ordinary days in the humid tropics. This is why some plants grow so much more rapidly in certain parts of the Arctic than the same plants do in any part of the tropics or temperate zone. An interesting, and to most botanists an un expected, corollary is that some plants also grow to far greater size in the Arctic than in the temperate zone or tropics, as cab bages, for instance. This may possibly be because they lose speed in the temperate zone where they have to stop and start again to conform with alternation of day and night, but can maintain a continuous and fairly uniform rate of growth in the Arctic where the daylight is continuous.
Dr. Fridtjof Nansen announced as one of the outstanding conclusions of his great scientific expedition of
that the Arctic is, on the average, one of the least stormy large regions of the world. Stefansson's observations as a result of II years spent north of the Arctic Circle and the studies of other observers have tended to confirm Nansen. In many parts violent gales are quite absent, or at least have not yet been observed by scientific men. Gales are common only where an open ocean is faced by high mountains or a plateau.
It is difficult to measure Arctic snowfall because the snow is usually very dry and fluffy and is driven about a great deal by even the lightest winds. There is no doubt that, however, on the average, Arctic precipitation is very light. It is estimated that, if the snow of winter be added to the rain of summer, the result would be about eight inches of water, cer tainly not more than ten, on most parts of the Arctic lowlands of Canada and Alaska. The Siberian lowlands may be even drier. We have, therefore, the apparent paradox that the aver age snowfall of the Arctic is much less than that of Scotland or of Illinois, for instance.
It is now well established that there is no perma nent snow or ice on any land in the Arctic unless it be moun tainous. The required height of mountains varies roughly with the varying precipitation. The highest mountains of Melville island, for instance, are probably not more than 4.000 feet. This is not enough for the formation of any real glaciers. E. de K. Leffingwell, in his studies of Arctic Alaska, found that in the first coast range south of Flaxman island, the altitude of 6,000ft. was not enough for the formation of glaciers. But in the second range, a little farther south, which runs up towards i o,000f t., there were some glaciers. So far as we yet know, there is no evidence of ancient glaciation on the great low plains of Arctic Alaska. This must have been because they were then as now a region of very light snowfall.
Since fogs are caused by the meeting of air currents of differing humidity and temperature, it is obvious that the insular Arctic and the coast lands must be regions of frequent fogs. In summer, for instance, with a lowland steaming under a sun that creates an 80° temperature in the shade, and just in front of it an ocean the surface of which is around 30° F, any breeze blowing from the land would be suddenly cooled, produc ing a sea fog. Similarly, any breeze coming from the ocean would produce a fog over the superheated land. Such fogs would be thickest and most frequent where the sea and land meet. We gradually work out of the land fogs when we travel inland and out of the sea fogs when we steam away from land. From the flying point of view, it is important that these fogs have been found by experience to be very low on the average. They are often thick on the decks of whaling ships, but so thin at the masthead that the captains in the crow's-nests can see each other plainly while the men on the decks have no visual evidence that other ships are near.
Summing up, the Arctic winters are longer than those of most extremely cold places now inhabited by prosperous and con tented Europeans, such as Dakota and Manitoba, for instance. They are also a little colder. But they are, on the other hand, less stormy and with a lighter snowfall. The summers, although shorter, are in some places almost or quite as hot. It would seem, then, that the same sort of people might be willing to live in the Arctic who are willing to live in Dakota and Manitoba. It will undoubtedly be difficult to get people to colonize the Arctic, but in the opinion of many this will not be any special Arctic problem but rather a general frontier one. For the tend ency which brings American farmers to the cities, increasing the percentage of urban population, makes it as difficult to induce Londoners who are out of work to migrate to sub-tropical Aus tralia as to sub-Arctic Canada. The weakening or dying out of the frontier spirit is one of the conspicuous social phenomena of our time.
Since the climate, as such, will not prevent Arctic colonization, the ascertained resources may be enumerated.
It is now known that coal is almost, if not quite, as likely to be found in the Arctic as in tropical or temperate lands. It is not surprising, therefore, that seams of coal, of varying quality, of course, have been reported by most Arctic explorers. Stefansson, for instance, found coal in all but two of the islands north of western Canada. In these, Victoria island and Meighen island, further exploration may show coal. Coal of quality said to be equal to the best Welsh has been mined for several decades in Spitsbergen, some Soo or 600m. N. of the Arctic Circle, and these mines should eventually supply a great part of northern Scandinavia and of northern Russia. In Alaska, a coal mine at Cape Lisburne, well north of the Arctic Circle, was worked to supply the whaling fleet even before 1885, and fell into disuse only with the abandonment of the whaling industry. The natives of the north coast of Alaska mine coal at Wainwright for their own use and to sell locally to missionaries, government schools, traders, etc. The members of Stefansson's expedition, living by hunting on Melville island, maintained two winter camps, one in Liddon gulf and the other on the north coast near Cape Grassy. They burned bituminous shale in the southern camp, but in the northern they burned lignite of good quality, some of it saturated with oil.
Indications of oil have been found in many parts of the Arctic. The Imperial Oil Company of Canada, a branch of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, has wells on the Mackenzie river just south of the Arctic Circle, and the same oil-fields are known to extend beyond the circle. About 5oom. N. from these wells and, therefore, about loom. N. of the Arctic Circle, Stefans son found oil on northern Melville island. The U.S. navy has re cently set aside a vast oil reserve in Arctic Alaska, and both pri vate prospectors and representatives of large oil companies have staked claims east of the government reserve. These claims are near Cape Simpson which, but for Barrow, is the most north erly cape in Alaska.
Hardly less fundamental than oil and coal are iron and copper. No large Arctic deposits of iron ore are known. There are iron "prospects," however, in many places. But the copper fields that lie between Bear lake and the centre of Victoria island in a district roughly 2oom.sq., give great prom ise—if the world's need of copper increases, or if the spread of settlements to that country make mining more feasible. There are copper prospects in other parts of the Arctic, and gold, silver, platinum and tin have been found.
A more fundamental resource than even the oil and coal is the vegetation of the Arctic that makes food-produc tion possible. The coniferous forest extends beyond the Arctic Circle, in Canada in certain river valleys as much as mom., and even farther in Siberia. Trees loaf t. high are found well north of the Arctic Circle. They make the Arctic more homelike to those who are used to forests, and they are doubtless valuable. But many consider that the same land would be more immedi ately valuable if the trees were absent, for then it would be covered with grass, like most of the rest of the Arctic, whether continental or insular. It is one of the exploded beliefs that Arctic vegetation is mainly mosses and lichens. In 1909 Sir Clements Markham published the statement that the Arctic possesses 28 species of ferns, 250 lichens, 332 mosses and 762 flowering plants. Many species have been discovered since then, and many others will be discovered hereafter. There will probably be little disagreement with the estimate that we have in the Arctic at least ten times as many kinds of flowering plants as of non-flowering. There are a few small portions of the Arctic where cereals can be profitably cultivated, and still others where garden vegetables will be of some value. But, so far as can be seen at present, the chief thing to do with the Arctic soil is to permit that vegetation to continue growing which grows there already and to make an economic use of it by converting it into meat, hides and other animal products.
There is one suitable animal, the reindeer, domestic in the Old World since prehistoric times. No one knows how many of these there may be in Arctic Siberia, where single owners often have from 5,000 to io,000 head. But there are definite figures for the entire period of reindeer domestication in Alaska. The U.S. Government commenced by importing 16 head from Siberia in 1892. Up to 1902, when importation ceased because of an embargo imposed by the tsar's government, 1,28o animals were brought from Siberia. These have never failed to double every three years since importation, so that by the spring of 1928 there were 800,000 head. The U.S. department of agriculture esti mates that the grazing resources of Arctic and sub-Arctic Alaska will be adequate for 3,000,00o to 4,000,00o. Since the climate and vegetation of Arctic Canada are, for reindeer purposes, the same as those of Arctic Alaska, with an area ten times greater, we can say, roughly, that Canada will support from 30,000,00o to 40,000,000 head. Undoubtedly the reindeer area in Asia and north ern Europe is twice as large as the Alaskan and Canadian to gether, which would make total world figures between Ioo,000,000 and 125,000,000. This estimate is probably low. No animal now domestic can be profitable in the Arctic except the reindeer. Cattle, sheep, horses and goats can, of course, be raised in many parts, but under present costs and prices they would not pay. The reindeer pays handsomely because it needs no barn for shelter, no hay for feed, nor any protection from wind or weather.
was a project under dis cussion in 1928 of domesticating the ovibos (musk ox) because it eats certain Arctic vegetation that reindeer do not eat and be cause the reindeer produces only meat and hides while the ovibos produces wool in addition. Ovibos beef is indistinguishable from ordinary domestic beef in colour, flavour, texture and odour. The wool, as determined by the textiles department of the Univer sity of Leeds (Prof. Aldred F. Barker), has good heat-retaining and wearing qualities, is easy to bleach and dye, is softer than cashmere, and will not shrink—in other words, is one of the finest of known wools. With the ovibos domesticated, the poten tialities of the Arctic will be greater. But with only the reindeer, there is no doubt that the Arctic grasslands (which means all lands in the Arctic not so high and mountainous as to be snow covered) will be colonized unless, indeed, the world movement of population from the country to the cities entirely stops further colonization. In most cases mining will develop after the ranch men have occupied the grazing lands. But in some cases, notably with oil, the mining will precede colonization. That gold mining will precede colonization seems for the moment unlikely, although that is, the one kind of mining that has hitherto taken people to the Arctic. But the rise in the cost of living is only another ex pression for a drop in the value of gold, so that the gold deposits, which paid fabulously in Alaska 20 years ago, are not so paying now even where production remains uniform.
Finally we must point out a resource of the Arctic that has nothing to do with climate, minerals or the like, but is due entirely to position. The history of civilization as we know it is essentially the history of the Northern Hemisphere. Gen erally speaking, civilization seems to have started in the sub tropics—Yucatan for the New World; Egypt, Asia Minor, etc., for the Old World. As civilization has been spreading northward during historic time, it has really been spreading toward the centre of a circle. That centre is the Arctic.
It was an Elizabethan ideai'to find a sea-way north from Europe to the Indies. No practical route was ever found, because of the floating ice in the Arctic sea. So, perforce, we have gone round about. But now ships of the air are opening up the roads of the air which lie straight in any desired direction. As the Elizabethans knew, China is north of Europe. But Peking is also north of New York, and the wheat-fields that are spreading over central Siberia are north of the growing wheat-fields of central Canada. The cities springing up in those wheat lands will be far from each other east and west, but not half so far riorth and south.
The world is developing an increasing speed mania, both for messages and for passengers. The flying condi tions of the Arctic are probably, on the average, as good as those of any other equally large area of the world. It follows, there fore, that the centre of the circle of civilization, which is the Arctic, will be the flying crossroads of the world. This will neces sitate the establishment of way stations here and there. Of it self, that will to a small extent require colonization. It will have a vastly greater indirect effect by spreading accurate knowledge of the Arctic throughout the world. Thereupon will follow such colonization as the real climate and actual resources justify.
V. Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic
andBibliography.—V. Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic
and The Northward Course of Empire (1922) ; reports of the Territorial Government of Alaska ; annual reports of the U.S. bureau of educa tion since 1892 ; reports of various departments of the Government of Canada ; report of the royal commission to investigate the pos sibilities of the reindeer and musk ox industries in the Arctic and sub-arctic regions of Canada, published 1922, department of the interior, Ottawa, Canada. Material on arctic resources is contained in: V. Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo (1913), Hunters of the Great North (1922), The Adventure of Wrangel Island (1925) ; K. Rasmussen, Fra Groenland til Stillehavet (1926) (Eng.-lang. abridge ment, 1927, Across Arctic America) ; G. H. Wilkins, Flying the Arctic (1928) ; W. H. Hobbs, North Pole of the Winds (193o) ; John Rae, Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846-7, (185o) ; J. Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition (1851) , Polar Regions (1861) ; R. N. R. Brown, The Polar Regions (1927) ; A. W. Greely, The Polar Regions in the Twentieth Century (1928) ; G. W. De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette (1883) . (V.S.)
