CHAPTER IX 



OUT OF THE ICE 



CLEAR weather at any rate partly offset the diffi- 

 cult nature of our situation. Nearly all day the 

 sun flashed brilliantly upon the ruffling water and 

 the exquisite crystals of the ice. Some miles to our 

 south we could see the low, dark, undulating line of the 

 dreary coast tundra a little above the dazzhng fields of 

 ice. Twenty or thirty miles farther inland a desolate 

 range of mountains with snow-streaked summits was 

 piled several thousand feet m the air. Not a tree or 

 bush was visible, for the plant life of the Arctic shore is 

 fitted to cling tenaciously to the ground against the 

 terrific winds of the long winter night. Driftwood, 

 however, was plentiful on the north coast of Siberia, 

 wherever the bold, rocky headlands gave place to steep, 

 shingly beaches. 



An interesting picture of Arctic land conditions is 

 drawn by Haacke: 



''The North Polar regions coincide in general with 

 that portion of the far north where tundra covers the 

 ground almost exclusively, beyond the last outpost of 

 stunted timber. Their natural southern boundary, viz: 

 the northern edge of the tunber line, lies south of the 

 Arctic Circle in America, but in Europe and Asia north 

 of it, and reaches farthest north in certam parts of 

 Siberia. The character of the landscape and vegetation 

 of the tundra owe their chief features to the Polar ch- 



(147) 



