THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 239 



"ovibos" as a "popular" name, and perhaps I shall do so occasion- 

 ally — not so much to give variety as to see how the reader likes it. 

 But for the weighty authority of the Parliamentary Blue Books 

 and of Sverdrup, who give us the precedent for calling them "cattle," 

 "polar cattle," and "polar oxen," I should have favored "ovibos" 

 as a name for daily speech no less than for scientific use. 



We soon came to the conclusion that while polar oxen were now 

 either rare or extinct in our immediate vicinity, there had been tre- 

 mendous numbers up to thirty or forty years ago. This was to be 

 inferred from the number of bleaching skeletons. Later I lived in 

 Melville Island, a present habitat, where they are supposed to be as 

 numerous to the square mile as in any ordinary arctic territory; 

 and yet it is clear from the number of bones that there must have 

 been at least ten times as many to the mile in Banks Island as 

 there are now in Melville Island. This is natural and follows from 

 the greater fertility of Banks Island. It is not in the main a matter 

 of latitude but of topography. Melville Island is prevailingly moun- 

 tainous, with large stretches where there is scarcely a blade of 

 grass; the valleys and low places may be fertile enough, yet there 

 are low, fiat plains almost as rocky and barren as the mountains. 

 In Banks Island there are mountains in the north end and in the 

 south, but the rugged topography even in these places affords more 

 areas suited to vegetation than does Melville Island. About three- 

 quarters of Banks Island, embracing the entire middle, is best 

 described to the person who has not traveled in the Arctic as typical 

 prairie land. In the days before North Dakota was settled by 

 farmers, I have seen there areas which could not by a casual glance 

 be distinguished from the central portions of Banks Island. If you 

 are a botanist and look closely at the nearby ground you will no- 

 tice strange plants that do not grow in North Dakota, but you 

 will notice also many familiar plants, such as bluegrass, timothy, 

 golden-rod, dandelion, poppy, watercress and edible mushrooms. 

 But if you glance off to a distance you will see the same sort of green 

 hills rolling away towards the horizon whether you are in Banks 

 Island or in certain parts of Nebraska, North Dakota or southern 

 Alberta. If there is a difference it is likely to be in the greater num- 

 ber of small lakes in Banks Island, although even these are not 

 very numerous, because the island has what the geologist calls 

 "mature drainage," so that little creeks carry off the water that 

 might otherwise be left in the form of ponds and lakes. 



This was an ideal country for polar oxen, which are grass-eaters, 

 with mouths not adapted to the picking up of the lichens that hug 



