THE ARCTIC OCEAN GENERALITIES The Arc tic Ocean comprises the whole water-area within the Arctic Circle, and is almost completely enclosed by the northern coasts of the Old and New Worlds. With the exception of a southerly bight opening into Behring's Strait, the coasts of Asia, from the mouth of the Kolyma eastwards, and those of North America and Northern Europe, generally conform to the parallel of 70° N. lat. ; but the Siberian coast, from the Gulf of Obi to the mouth of the Kolyma, has a more northerly trend, reaching in Cape Chelyuiskin, the extreme northern point of the Old World, the high latitude of 78° 12' N., thence gradually receding to latitude 70° N. at the mouth of the Kolyma. The North Polar Seas thus touch the Arctic Circle only at the northern end of Behring's Strait, Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, and the wide expanse between Iceland and Norway. These channels form the only water communica tion between the Arctic and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans —Behring's Strait leading into the former, and Davis Strait and the wide channel between Greenland and Norway into the latter.
The Arctic Ocean is thus nearly circular in form, being comprised within a radius of twenty degrees from the central point, the North Pole. It is also almost landlocked; of its entire circumference, only about 1,500 miles are open—about 50 into the Pacific, and the rest into the Atlantic. The dia meter of the space thus limited is about 2,500 miles, and the total area 5,550,000 square miles. The icebound condition of the Arctic Sea has utterly defeated all attempts hitherto made to penetrate northwards to the Pole. As we shall again ob serve, the Alert wintered in the northern extremity of Robeson Channel, and Commander Markham succeeded in pushing as far as 83° 20' 26" N. latitude ; but, generally speaking, the whole of the North Polar regions circumscribed by the 80th parallel is unknown—the belt between the 80th and the 70th parallels is but partially known—while the portions south of the 70th parallel may be said to be well known.
The Arctic Ocean encroaches on Europe in the White Sea—on Asia in the Gulfs of Kara, Obi, and Yene,sei ; between Asia and Alaska is the strait of Behring, the only channel of communication with the Pacific. The northern shores of North America are extremely indented and skirted by a most irregular assemblage of islands, thus forming numerous gulfs, straits, and channels, the principal of which are Baffin Bay, and its northerly prolongations, Smith Sound, Kennedy and Robeson Channels; Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Melville Sound, and Banks Strait; Coronation Gulf, Dease Strait, Simpson Strait, Gulf of Boothia, Fury and Hecla Strait, Fox Channel and Hudson Strait, and many other minor channels which need not be enumerated here.
Of the land-masses belonging to this ocean the principal are :—Greenland, now known to be an island, extending on the west to lat. 82" 54' N. ; Spitzbergen, Franz Joseph Land, Nova Zembla, between the Pole and Northern Europe ; Liakhov Islands or New Siberia, Kellet Land, off the coast of Siberia ; and the extensive archipelago north of North America, com prising Baffin Land, Victoria, Prince Albert and Banks Land, Prince of Wales Land, North Somerset and North Devon, Parry Islands (Prince Patrick, Melville, Cornwallis, &c.), and the large mass north of Jones Sound, the eastern and north eastern shores of which only have been explored, but which seems to terminate northwards in Cape Columbia, and is thus probably the extreme northerly prolongation of the Arctic Archipelago. The last English expedition definitely deter mined the northerly limit of land in this direction, but instead of a perfectly open sea beyond, ice of immense thickness barred further progress towards the Pole.
The Arctic Ocean receives the drainage of an immense extent of land, comprising the whole of the Asiatic continent north of the Aldan and the Altai Mountains, and Kirghis Steppe ; Russia, north of latitude 60° ; North America west of a low watershed running from Boothia south-west to Lake Athabasca and the Rocky Mountains. The Asiatic section of the Arctic river-system embraces the Kolyma, Indigirka, Lena, Olenek, Yenesei, and Obi, of which the two last and the Lena are the largest. The Siberian plain, which they traverse longitudinally, is over 1,000 miles wide, and the slight fall of the land renders them extremely sluggish except when in flood. Being frozen during the greater part of the year, and flowing through a thinly populated, marshy, and inhospitable country, their commercial importance is inconsiderable. The recent explorations of Dr. Nordenskiold, and his splendid dis covery of the long sought North-east Passage, may probably lead to the establishment of some trade between the Western European nations and Asiatic Russia, but it can never be very extensive or important, as both the rivers and their outlets, as well as the ocean into which they enter, are frozen over, and consequently unnavigable, during the greater part of the year.