208 SCIENCE IN SHOUT CHAPTERS. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



AERIAL EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



ON our own hemisphere, and separated from our own coasts by 

 only a few days' journey on our own element, there remains a blank 

 circle of unexplored country above 800 miles in diameter. We have 

 tried to cross it, and have not succeeded. Nothing further need be 

 said in reply to those who ask, " Why should we start another Arctic 

 Expedition?" 



The records of previous atempts to penetrate this area of geo- 

 graphical mystery prove the existence of a formidable barrier of 

 mountainous land, fringed by fiords or inlets, like those of Norway, 

 some of which may be open, though much contracted northward, like 

 the Vestf jord that lies between the Lofoden Islands and the mainland 

 of Scandinavia. The majority evidently run inland like the ordinary 

 Norwegian fiords or the Scotch firths, and terminate in land valleys 

 that continue upward to field regions, or elevated humpy land which 

 acts as a condenser to the vapor-laden air continually flowing toward 

 the Pole from the warmer regions of the earth, and returning in 

 lower streams when cooled. The vast quantities of water thus con- 

 densed fall upon these hills and table lands as snow crystals. What 

 becomes of this everlasting deposit ? 



Unlike the water that rains on temperate hill-sides, it cannot all 

 flow down to the sea as torrents and liquid rivers, but it does come 

 down nevertheless, or long ere this it would have reached the highest 

 clouds. It descends mainly as glaciers, which creep down slowly, but 

 steadily and irresistibly, filling up the valleys on their way ; and 

 stretching outward into'the fiords and channels, which they block up 

 with their cleft and chasmed crystalline angular masses that still 

 creep outward to the sea until they float, and break off or "calve" as 

 mountainous icebergs and smaller masses of ice. 



These accumulations of ice ihna formed on land constitute the chief 

 obstructions that bar the channels and inlets fringing the unknown 

 Polar area. The glacier fragments above described are cemented to- 

 gether in the winter time by the freezing of the water between them. 

 An open frozen sea, pure and simple, instead of forming a barrier to 

 Arctic exploration, would supply a most desirable highway. It must 

 not be supposed that, because the liquid ocean is ruffled by ripples, 

 waves, and billows, a frozen sea would have a similar surface. The 

 freezing of such a surface could only start at the calmest intervals, 

 and the ice would shield the water from the action of the wave-mak- 

 ing wind, and such a sea would become a charming skating rink, like 

 the Gulf of Bothnia, the Swedish and Norwegian lakes, and certain 

 fiords, which, in the winter time, become natural ice -paved highways 

 offering incomparable facilities for rapid locomotion. In spite of the 

 darkness and the cold, winter is the travelling season in Sweden and 

 Lapland. The distance that can be made in a given time in summer 

 with a wheeled vehicle on well-made post roads, can be covered in 

 half the time in fipulk or reindeer sledge drawn over the frozen lakes. 

 From Spitzbergen to the Pole would be an easy run of five or six days 

 if nothing but a simply frozen sea stood between them. 



