82 



The thick sheets of snow in the Arctic regions do not rest on the 

 surface soil uniformly, but leave in places " a clear space, one or 

 " two inches high, over a large area, leaving ample room for the 

 " lemmings to run about and free space above the dwarf Arctic 

 " plants, with an uniform temperature many degrees higher than 

 " the atmosphere ;" which Sir G. Nares explains by evaporation. 

 (See Sir G. Nares' Voyage of the Aleri, i. 225). 



Dr. Kane explains the formation of this air space. " The first warm 

 " snows of August and September falling on a thickly pleached 

 '' carpet of grasses, heaths, and willows, enshrine them in a non- 

 " conducting air-chamber, so that they retain their vitahty, 

 " beneath from six to ten feet of snow. The frozen subsoil 

 " does not encroach upon this narrow zone of vegetation. I 

 "have found in midwinter, in this high latitude of 78° 50', the 

 " surface so nearly moist as to be friable to the touch." — 

 (E. K. Kane, 2nd Grinnel Expedition, i. 2 67.) 



Sir E. Belcher and other travellers frequently allude to the greater 

 warmth beneath the snow. 



Inasmuch then as the thaw proceeds, when the soil is still covered 

 with six feet or more of snow, it is certain that the weight of the 

 snow must greatly influence the soil already unstable, and in 

 ^ circumstances where its surface cannot be hardened by drying. 

 Consequently in cases where the snow lies in irregular masses, 

 some young and some of several years' growth, great inequalities 

 of pressure must occur to vary the motion of the soil, even 

 where hills and dales are not marked features of the country. 



The following extracts are given in support of this. Nordenskiold, 

 (in the voyage of the Vega II. p. 62) mentions that at a time 

 when the spring was still in progress in Siberia, " At many 

 '• places, on the Tundra, the grassy sward had been torn up by 

 " the ice, and carried away, leaving openings sharply defined by 

 "right lines in the meadows, resembling a newly worked off 

 " place in a peat moss." 



Sir G. Nares (Voyage to the Polar Sea, 1875, Vol. i. p. 114) says 

 " In the evening 25th August, I ascended a hill on the north 

 "side of Discovery Harbour, a height of 1,200ft. by aneroid, it 

 "was the worst ground for walking over that I ever met with. 

 " The level plots were cut up by the frost into large clods like a 

 " deeply ploughed field with cross ridges, the whole was covered 

 " with a smooth carpet of snow," as Autumn was just com- 

 mencing, " which while hiding the irregularities from sight was 

 " not solid enough to bear one's weight. It was, however, 

 '•extremely gratifying to find (when the snow melted) a loamy 



