THE NORTH POLAR BASIN. 391 



always followed by frost. If it thawed one day, it froze the next, and 

 little or no impression was made on the snow. The most tangible sign 

 of coming summer was an increase in the number of birds, but they 

 were nearly all forest birds, which could enjoy the sunshine in the 

 pines and birches, and which were by no means dependent on the melt- 

 ing away of the snow for their supply of food. Between May 1<> and 

 30 we had more definite evidence of our being within bird flight of bare 

 grass or open water. Migratory flocks of wild geese passed over our 

 winter quarters, but if they were flying north one day they were flying 

 south the next, proving beyoiul all doul)t that tlieir migration was 

 premature. The geese evidently agreed with us that it ought to be 

 summer, but it was as clear to the geese as to us that it really was 

 winter. 



We afterward learned that during the last ten days of ^Fay a tre- 

 mendous battle had been raging 600 miles, as the crow Hies, to the 

 southward of our position on the Arctic Circle. Summer in league 

 with the sun had been fighting winter and the ncn-th wind all along 

 the line, and had been as hopelessly beaten everywhere as we were 

 witnesses that it had been in our part of the river. At length, when 

 the final victory of summer looked the most hopeless, a change was 

 made in the command of the forces. Suinmer entered into an alliance 

 with the south wind. The sun retired in dudgeon to his tent behind 

 the clouds; mists obscured the landscape; a soft south wiml played 

 gently on the snow, which melted under its all-powerful influence like 

 butter u])on hot toast; the tide of battle was suddenly turned; the 

 armies of winter soon vanished into thin water and beat a hasty retreat 

 toward the pole. Theett'ect on the great river was magical. Its thick 

 armor of ice cracked with a loud noise like the rattling of thunder; 

 every twenty-four hours it was lifted up a fathom above its former 

 level, broken up, first into ice floes and then into i)ack ice, and marched 

 downstream at least 100 miles. Even at this great speed it was more 

 than a fortnight before the last straggling ice blocks passed our post of 

 observation on the Arctic Circle; but during that time the river had 

 risen 70 feet above its winter level, although it was 3 miles wide and 

 we were in the middle of a blazing hot summer, picking flowers of a 

 hundred different kinds and feasting upon wild ducks' eggs of various 

 species. Birds abounded to an incredible extent. Between ^lay 29 

 and June 18 I identified sixty-four species which I had not seen before 

 the breakup) of the ice. Some of them stopped to breed and already 

 had eggs, but many of them followed the retreating ice to the tundra, 

 and we saw them no more until, many Aveeks afterward, we had sailed 

 down the river beyond the limit of forest growth. 



The victory of the south wind was absolute, but not entirely unin- 

 terrupted. Occasionally tlie winter made a desperati^ stand against 

 the sudden onrush of summer. The north wind rallied its beaten 

 forces for days together, the chiuds and the rain were driven back, and 



