2l6 POLAR PROBLEMS 



feed the larger animals. In which case you would need a separate 

 explanation of the agreed-upon absence of, for instance, fish and 

 seals in the "dead" area. 



The farther you went into the explanation of the lifelessness, the 

 harder your task became. For it was already known, for instance in 

 the case of the Labrador and Newfoundland fisheries, that cold waters 

 were particularly favorable to an abundant animal life. It was also 

 known that the waters of the Arctic do not usually go below 28° F., 

 or 27°. There was accordingly no reason to think that the mere chill 

 of the water would have a determining influence upon every species, 

 both big and little, unless you assumed that the drop to 28° was critical 

 for all of them. And this would have to be a pure assumption. 



The Question of the Stifling of Life under the Sea Ice 



At this stage of the argument it became necessary, since you 

 could not rely on the mere cold, to assume that the lifeless area was 

 lifeless because the animals would stifle under the ice. Examining 

 that hypothesis, we had to consider what the ice conditions were or 

 would probably be where the life was supposed to be absent and to 

 compare these with similar conditions, if they could be found, where 

 it was known from observation whether life exists or not. 



It is agreed on all hands that the floating ice on the Arctic Sea is 

 more or less broken even in midwinter, though estimates vary as to 

 the abundance and extent of these breaks. The accounts of expedi- 

 tions such as Wrangel's, Nansen's, Cagni's, Peary's, or ours, show 

 that you may be traveling over extensive, continuous ice but finding 

 everywhere proof that a week or two ago these now continuous fields 

 were a conglomeration of cakes with open water between them. Simi- 

 larly you are stopped by open water one year at a locality where the 

 ice was continuous the year before. Accordingly, most authorities 

 would agree that in any parts of the ocean so far traversed by men 

 and sledges, floes more than fifty miles in diameter that maintain 

 their integrity for several weeks at a time are extremely rare, if they 

 occur at all. 



Then, if it be assumed that, in the Arctic Sea, life disappears 

 because of stifling and that this happens because a solid roofing pre- 

 vents oxygen from penetrating down from the air through the ice 

 and through the water, we turn to known places of similar condition 

 to see if life be possible. We get our most conclusive answer from the 

 great lakes that are roofed with ice in winter. 



Take, for instance, Lake Winnipeg, which is in places more than 

 50 miles in diameter. The lowest winter temperatures there come 

 down to 55° F. below zero, or about the equal of Arctic winter tem- 

 peratures at sea. As such, the coldness of the air, however, makes no 



