302 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



eat whale and seal meat raw, and sometimes 

 quite putrid. They use no seasoning, and can 

 not bear the taste of salt. All of them smoke 

 men, women, and children. They make their 

 own pipes, the stems of two pieces of wood 

 wound with sinews of whalebone, the small 

 bowls of different metals combined, very skillful- 

 ly worked. Their superstitious belief in shama- 

 nism is so strong that the medicine-men deceive 

 them with the most transparent tricks. They 

 believe also in witchcraft. Blood-revenge is 

 practiced, but murders are rare. The avenger 

 may wait many years before striking the blow, 

 which he usually delivers secretly and without 

 exposing himself to danger. Aside from this 

 custom they have no laws or punishments. 

 When not in drink they are very kind-hearted, 

 and in the opinion of Captain Hooper could be 

 easily civilized. 



Whales are found everywhere in this ocean, 

 entering as soon as the ice breaks up and re- 

 maining until the sea closes again. They are 

 said by the natives to be most numerous after 

 the departure of the whaling -fleet. They are 

 most frequently found in the vicinity of the 

 ice, and the whalers watch for them in" the 

 wake of the ice-pack. The season is report- 

 ed to have been remarkably successful, though 

 the season before very few whales were killed 

 in these waters ; their average size this year was 

 20 per cent, greater than usual. The whale 

 called the bowhead, a variety of Balena inystice- 

 ta, is the only common kind. The finback and 

 California gray whales are rare, as is also the 

 grampus. The Beluga catadon, or white whale, 

 frequents the mouths of rivers, and particularly 

 Kotzebue Sound. The walrus enters the Arctic 

 Ocean in the spring from Behring Sea, and re- 

 turns when the ice closes the ocean. They col- 

 lect in large numbers on the floes, not venturing 

 on the main pack for fear of the polar bear. 

 Seals are found in all parts of the Arctic Ocean. 

 The common hair-seal, the Phoca vitulina, and 

 the large hair-seal, probably identical with the 

 PhocaGreenlandica,, are abundant ; the leopard- 

 seal is equally well distributed, but not com- 

 mon. Examples of an unknown variety, small 

 and dark-colored, with a slender body and point- 

 ed head, were observed from the Corwin. The 

 Seal Islands abound more than ever before with 

 seals, and the beaches are swarming with their 

 young. The party killed several polar bears 

 ranging from 900 to 2,000 pounds in weight. 

 Reindeer are usually most numerous between 

 Point Belcher and Point Barrow, but are very 

 migratory. Moose, though very common in- 

 land, do not visit the coast. The ibex is plen- 

 tiful in the hills, but can seldom be killed. 

 Muskrats and squirrels are very abundant. 

 Among the birds which swarm on the islands 

 and along shore the commonest were white 

 gulls, and gulls with black-tipped wings, crest- 

 ed auks, lesser auks, two varieties of puffins, 

 eider-ducks, murr, white owls, robber-birds, 

 tern, and ravens, the latter being found all 

 along the coast. Pigeon guillemots, spring- 



tail ducks, old squaws, two varieties of snipe, 

 plover, sparrows, and a small bird called the 

 bowhead bird by the whalers, were also met 

 with, and many smaller birds. The only val- 

 uable fish is the salmon, which is smaller than 

 the salmon of lower latitudes, but is of excel- 

 lent flavor. 



No icebergs, such as are found in the Atlan- 

 tic near Greenland, are found in the Arctic 

 Ocean. The highest ice observed did not rise 

 more than fifty feet above the water. The 

 main pack averages ten to fifteen feet in height, 

 with hummocks twenty or thirty feet high. 

 Ice does not form in the water in a thicker 

 sheet than eighteen feet. The deepest forma- 

 tion in a single winter is nine and a half feet. 

 The pack-ice formed by many sheets crushed 

 together and piled upon each other, is one hun- 

 dred to two hundred feet in thickness. Drift- 

 ice skirts the pack in summer, sometimes float- 

 ing fifteen or twenty miles away when the 

 wind blows off the pack. Large rifts open at 

 times in the pack, which may be followed 

 many miles ; but it is dangerous to enter these 

 leads, or even to approach the pack, as long 

 tongues of ice suddenly shoot out from the 

 pack, and unless very alert and watchful the 

 navigators may be locked in the ice. Since 

 1871 fifty-four whaling-vessels have been lost 

 in this part of the Arctic Ocean, thirty-three 

 of which have been caught in the ice-pack. 

 The pack has a slow but constant drift toward 

 the northeast. Arctic ice is of four colors : 

 snow-ice newly formed is white and opaque; 

 ice formed in muddy and shallow waters is 

 brownish gray, opaque, and often covered with 

 sand and earth ; ice containing salt is green- 

 ish ; and clear ice which contains none is blue. 

 Above the ice the air is colored yellow with 

 reflected light. This appearance, called the 

 ice-blink, can be seen thirty or forty miles, and 

 before the ice itself is in sight. Drift-ice can 

 be distinguished at a distance from the solid 

 pack by dark lines over the openings. The 

 breaking up of the ice commences in the region 

 of Behring Strait in May or June. By the first 

 of September new ice begins to form, though 

 the general closing does not occur until after 

 the beginning of October. The perennial mass, 

 called the barrier, varies a little in position 

 from year to year, but generally may be looked 

 for near Icy Cape during September. It ex- 

 tends westerly as far as Herald Shoal, where it 

 takes a northwesterly direction to the vicinity 

 of Herald Island. Here, in August and Sep- 

 tember, a lane of open water is generally found 

 extending to the northward. This space is at 

 first filled with broken ice. In the Cor win's 

 second attempt to reach the island they steamed 

 up this lane over fifty miles, with the pack in 

 sight from the mast-head on both sides. The 

 last twenty miles they were compelled to force 

 a way through drift-ice. The icy barrier ex- 

 tends several degrees farther south between 

 Point Barrow and Wrangel Land than in any 

 other part of the Arctic regions. 





