THE PROBLEM OF PERMANENT ARCTIC LIFE 217 



read before the British Association in 1895, on 'Life 

 and its Conditions in Arctic Lands.' Mr Battye's 

 observations were mainly made in the island of 

 Kolguev, off the Petchora river, and, compared with 

 the records of explorers who have lived through the 

 Artie night, they explain much of what has hitherto 

 appeared unaccountable. 



In the first place, he attaches due importance to 

 the beneficent effect on life of the nightless Arctic 

 summer. At Kolguev, which lies at no great distance 

 north of the Arctic line, the year falls equally into 

 six months of perpetual sunlight and six of unbroken 

 night. The never-setting sun of the first forces the 

 powers of life at high pressure ' life beating strongly 

 under perpetual sunlight ; life, and the propagation 

 of life, by birds as clamorously, by flowers as brightly, 

 as in the lands of the south.' Of the flowers, 

 * buttercups, dandelions, forget-me-not, hawkweed, 

 cuckoo-flower, sedum, and saxifrage are found in 

 blossom, and no English meadow can outvie these 

 Arctic pastures in masses of purple and blue and gold.' 

 But these are the halcyon days of the Polar region. 

 When the winter and darkness settle down on the 

 land, the birds, ducks, geese, knots, sanderlings, and 

 plovers fly south, except the raven, the ptarmigan, 

 and two species of gull. But with these remain all 

 the mammals, not only the whales and seals, but the 



