CHAPTER II. 



ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



Of the six centres of creation shared by the Eu- 

 ropean seas, one of the least prolific in number and 

 variety of species, is the Arctic province, within 

 which are included the snowy and inhospitable 

 islands of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, the north- 

 ern coasts of Russia, the coasts of Finmark, and? 

 though rather as an intermediate and bounding 

 state, the greater part of the shores and islands of 

 Nordland — in short, all those continental portions 

 and insular dependencies of Europe that lie within 

 the Arctic Circle. In the strictest sense, the exten- 

 sive, though barren, islands of the Arctic Ocean, 

 and the very northernmost points of the continent 

 only can claim to exhibit the true and typical fea- 

 tures of the Arctic province. We should probably 

 be justified in comprehending within it the north- 

 ernmost shores of Iceland ; for the margin of this 

 region, which is itself much more extensive than its 

 European portions indicate, extending, as it does, 

 through the icy seas of Arctic America, becomes 

 more and more southern towards the western side 

 of the Atlantic, and in the New World impinges on 

 the shores of Labrador and Newfoundland. From 



