ARCTIC OCEAN, that part of the universal sea which surrounds the north pole. Its single boundary, that towards the s., naturally divides itself into four sections—the northern shores respectively of the two continents, and the northern limits respectively of the two intercontinental oceans.
The A. O. meets the Pacific at Behring strait, in about 66° of n. lat., so that here the A. O. overlaps the arctic circle by about 30'. On the side of the Atlantic, again, the common border seems to be equally independent of arbitrary definition, for Scoresby sound almost as definitely terminates the s.e. coast of Greenland as North Cape term inates the n.w. coast of Europe; so that, as both extremes are intersected by about the same parallel of 71°,, the A. O. here falls short of the arctic circle by about 4e.
In the old world, the A. O., if we include its gulfs, stretches s. of the arctic circle, in the White sea, fully 2°; while at cape Severn, the most northerly point of Asia, in lat. 78° n., it falls short of the same by 11° 55'. Lastly, within the range of the new world, the A.O., in its strict acceptation, is everywhere forced back within the arctic circle, about 5° at Point Barrow, about 7i° on Barrow's strait, and about 3' at the strait of the Fury and Hecla.
The waters of the A.O., however, may conveniently be extended beyond these their strict limits. So far as the mere aspect of the map is concerned, Davis's strait, Baffin's bay, and Hudson's bay may be regarded as gulfs ratherof the Atlantic than of the A.O. But if essential characteristics are permitted to outweigh mere position, they must be assigned rather to the A.O. than to the Atlantic. Besides being all fed by currents from the A.O., they are all hyperborean in temperature. Even the most southerly of the three illustrates this. While Hudson's straits present, in general, more ice than Davis's strait or Baffin's bay, Hudson's bay itself has been the scene of perhaps the two most abortive, if not most disastrous, of all modern attempts at northern discovery. On oppo site sides of Southamptom island, Lyons and Black were arrested by impenetrable packs, the one near the bay of God's Mercy, and the other off cape Comfort—the latter point being li°, and the former being twice as much, s. of the arctic circle. Reckoning, therefore, to the bottom of .James's bay, as an arm of Hudson's, the arctic seas, thus appended to the A.O. proper, reach as far s. as the parallel of London.
Little as is yet known, at least accurately, of the A.O., its discovery and exploration have developed and tasked more skill and heroism than perhaps the exploration and ' discovery of all the rest of the world since the age of Columbus. Without anticipating what is to be said on this subject under the heads of NORTH-EAST PASSAGE, I\ ORTIT• WEST PASSAGE, and POLAR EXPEDITIONS, it may not he out of place here to state sum marily the comparatively easy labors of the Russians while issuing, as it were, from their domestic rivers to survey their domestic shores. About a century and a quarter ago, the Muscovites simultaneously sent forth five expeditionsto complete, if possible, the n.e. passage. From the White sea to the Obi, four seasons were. Consumed; from the Obi to the Yenesei, four seasons; from the Yenesei to the Lena, season after season was spent in both directions without success; from the Lena to the Kolyma, six seasons were occu pied; from the Kolyma to the Pacific every effort was fruitless, though the Cossack Deshneff was known to have accomplished this part of the enterprise about a century before.
Arctic navigation, in fact, is beset by almost every imaginable difficulty and danger. In addition to the peculiar perils of ice in all possible states, the adventurer, often blinded by fogs and snows, has to face, generally without guide or sea-room, the storms, tides, and currents of comparatively unknown waters. If such be his three months of sum mer, what must be his nine months of winter! Take a general illustration from the per sonal experience of the most successful of all the arctic navigators. On the parallel of
73°, and under a temperature of 15° below zero of Fah., capt. M'Clure spent the night of 30th Oct. 1851, ou the ice, amid prowling bears, and that without food or ammunition—his only guide being a pocket-compass, which, however, the darkness, thickened by mist and drift, rendered useless. The gallant officer whiled away the time by sleeping three hours on "a famous bed of soft dry snow," and by wandering 10 in., by the crow's flight, over a surface so rugged as to endanger his limbs. It was at the close of a pedestrian expedition of nine days, on very short allowance of food and water, that the adventure took place; and it had been immediately occasioned by a gen erous desire of reaching the winter quarters by a nearer cut, so as to have "a warm meal ready for his men on their arrival." Notwithstanding the labors and researches of two centuries and a half, very little of this vast ocean has been even seen by man. To the n. of 83° 30', in fact, the A.O., so far as authentic evidence goes, is a mere blank to geographers, for Parry, in 1827, barely reached lat. 82° 45'; Kane, in 1854, touched only 81° 22'; the Polaris, in 1871, reached only 82* 16'; in 1874, the Austro-Hungarian polar expedition just reached 82° 5'; and the British expedition of 1875-6 could advance no further than 83° 20', the highest lati tude ever attained. At all the intermediate points of longitude, the northern limit of geographical knowledge falls short, more or less at every point, of the parallel of 83°. Perhaps the actual average of such northern limit, even on the full tale of 360° of long., may not exceed lat. 75°, so as to leave absolutely unknown a circle of 30° of lat., or nearly 2100 miles in diameter—au area little inferior to that of Europe. This uutrodderr world, however, is not to be regarded as a continuous wilderness of ice. Parry, at his furthest point, found not an unbroken field, but separate floes, with more or less of open water between them—the mildness of the temperature being indicated by falls of rain; and Kane, again, at his furthest point, saw a free sea to the n., as far as the eye could reach, from a promontory 240 ft. high; while, to use his own words, "a gale from the n.e., of 54 hours in duration, brought a heavy swell from that quarter without disclosing any drift or other ice." This is quite in keeping with the fact already noticed, that Hud son's straits and bay are often more encumbered with pack than the waters of far higher latitudes. With regard to currents, Parry, during nearly the whole of his boat sleigh expedition of 1827, found that his place by reckoning was considerably ahead of his place by observation, or, in other words, that his northward progress on the floes was neutralized more or less by the southward progress of the floes themselves, the exist ence of a current towards the s. being thus shown. M'Clure derived advantage from the current, whether advancing through open water or drifting along at the mercy of the pack. The experience of Weyprecht and Payer was different from that of any pre ceding navigators, since they found that they steadily drifted north. While M'Clure had the fortune to return with the news of the discovery of the n.w. passage, M'Clintock has shown that the discovery must have been anticipated by Sir John Franklin. Suc ceeding expeditions, of which a great number have been equipped by England, Germany, France, Sweden, America, Austria, and Denmark, have been mainly directed towards the north pole. The reports of the expedition of 1875-6 lead to the conclusion that the pole is surrounded by an inaccessible region of ice, to which has been given the name of the palreocrystie sea, or sea of ancient ice.