88 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



a year's duration and preferably longer, where detailed researches in 

 meteorology, biology, and other branches of science can be pursued. 

 Many years ago Denmark led the way with such a station at Disko in 

 Greenland. Norway has at least one permanent meteorological station 

 in Spitsbergen, but the only permanent station in the Antarctic regions 

 is the Argentine Observatory at the South Orkneys, founded in 1903 by 

 W. S. Bruce, unless we look upon the temporary marine laboratory of 

 the Falkland Islands Government at South Georgia as an Antarctic 

 station. There is room for more, and it is to be hoped that some day 

 there will be at least an oceanographical laboratory in that Arctic land, 

 only a few days' sail from our shores, western Spitsbergen. 



Meanwhile, we welcome the stimulus to real polar research afforded 

 by the Polar Research Institute at Cambridge and the new interest in 

 polar exploration evinced by the recent successful Cambridge expedition 

 to East Greenland, and no less valuable Oxford expedition in North-East 

 Land two years earlier. Such expeditions fill in details that were over- 

 looked in the age of pioneer journeys when the scientific problems 

 awaiting solution were not formulated. They can in one season accom- 

 plish as much as the older expeditions did in a year. We may look for 

 useful work from the Cambridge expedition now engaged in the survey 

 of the little-known Edge Island, Spitsbergen. Nor must we forget that 

 for some years now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in their patrols 

 between their far-flung Arctic posts have been quietly conducting useful 

 explorations. The excellent work of the Danes in Greenland should also 

 be noted and especially the exhaustive work on the Eskimo which 

 K. Rasmussen has extended westward to Bering Strait. Norway also is 

 filling in the details omitted by earlier explorers in Spitsbergen and 

 publishing a series of valuable monographs on that country. 



Settlement 01 Polar Lands. 



During recent years territorial claims have been made to all parts of 

 Arctic regions that were not formerly subject to sovereignty, and even 

 in the Antarctic great dependencies have appeared. This is an expression 

 of the growing belief that polar regions are not merely desert wastes but 

 have some economic resources of value to man. 



Fur and oil first brought Arctic regions into the areas of commerce. 

 The advance by sea, as with the explorer searching for a sea route to the 

 East, was naturally by the two gulfs of warmth into Davis Strait and the 

 Barents Sea. The most approachable Arctic lands were first exploited 

 and first devastated by hunter and trapper. Thus Greenland and 

 Spitsbergen have suffered first. The land approaches were naturally 

 where continental land projects farthest north, Canada and Siberia. 

 Those routes led to a later advance of the trapper, but to as ruthless an 

 exploitation when once it began. Hunting cannot last : it is rapidly 

 failing. Modern weapons are too effective, and already the Eskimo are 

 suffering after a brief period of prosperity. But since the market for furs 

 will continue and even grow, and since the best furs will always be 

 Arctic winter skins, the demand must be met by breeding fur animals. 

 Climate exercises a rigorous control on the commercial value of the 



