ARCTIC TIDES 



H. A. Manner 



The Arctic seas are for the most part characterized by tides of 

 small range. Indeed, on the shores fronting the North Polar Sea 

 there are but few places where the rise and fall of the tide is much 

 over a foot. In comparison, therefore, with the more striking aspects 

 of the Arctic the tide is quite unimpressive in its manifestations; 

 and as a consequence it was rather late in the history of polar ex- 

 ploration that more than casual observations on the tides appear. 



Harris' Tidal Investigations 



Even after tide observations became part of the day's work with 

 polar expeditions they were regarded as minor matters. They con- 

 stituted, to be sure, items of geographic information, but they ap- 

 peared to have no bearing on the major problems and immediate 

 purposes of polar exploration. At the beginning of the present 

 century, however, Harris directed attention to the fact that the 

 characteristics of the tides on the Arctic shores threw light on 

 the geography of the unexplored area lying north of the known 

 land masses.^ 



At this time Nansen's conclusions with regard to the unexplored 

 area were regarded as well established. Following his discovery 

 of ocean depths along the route of the Fram, Nansen concluded that 

 the Arctic Sea comprised an open basin of deep water occupying 

 all, or very nearly all, of the unexplored area. But in attempting 

 to correlate the tide observations in the Arctic, Harris found it 

 necessary to postulate the existence of a large tract of land to the 

 north of Alaska.^ The reasoning which led Harris to this conclusion 

 may be summarized briefly as follows. 



The principal tide-producing forces are of two kinds, daily and 

 semi-daily, the daily increasing in magnitude from the equator to 

 the poles, while the semi-daily decrease from the equator and vanish 

 at the poles. And while the response of any sea to the different tide- 

 producing forces is profoundly modified by its configuration and 

 hydrographic features, it appeared, nevertheless, that in an open 

 polar basin the daily tide should be rather well developed.'^ 



1 R. A. Harris: Some Indications of Land in the Vicinity of tlie North Pole, Natl. Geogr. Mag., 

 Vol. 15, 1904, pp. 255-261. 



^ibid., p. 257. 



3 idem: Evidences of Land Near the North Pole, Repl. Sth Inlernatl. Geogr. Congress, Held in 

 the United Stales, 1904, Washington, 1905, pp. 397-406; reference on p. 404. 



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