THE ARCTIC LANDS. 



27 



The line of perpetual snow may naturally be expected to descend lower and 

 lower on advancing to the pole, and hence many mountainous regions or ele- 

 vated plateaux, such as the interior of Spitzbergen, of Greenland, of Nova 

 Zembla, etc., which in a more temperate clime would be verdant with woods 

 or meadows, are here covered with vast fields of ice, from which frequently 

 glaciers descend down to the verge of the sea. But even in the highest north- 

 ern latitudes, no land has yet been found covered as far as the water's edge 

 with eternal snow, or where winter has entirely subdued the powers of vegeta- 

 tion. The reindeer of Spitzbergen find near 80° N, lichens or grasses to feed 

 upon ; in favorable seasons the snow melts by the end of June on the plains of 

 Melville Island, and numerous lemmings, requiring vegetable food foi- their sub- 

 sistence, inhabit the deserts of New Siberia. As far as man has reached to the 

 north, vegetation, when fostered by a sheltered situation and the refraction of 

 solar heat from the rocks, has everywhere been found to rise to a considerable 

 altitude above the level of the sea ; and should there be land at the North Pole, 

 there is every reason to believe that it is destitute neither of animal nor vege- 

 table life. It would be equally erroneous to suppose that the cold of winter in- 

 variably increases as we near the pole, as the temperature of a land is influ- 

 enced by many other causes besides its latitude. Even in the most northern 

 •regions hitherto visited by man, the influence of the sea, particularly when fa- 

 vored by warm currents, is found to mitigate the severity of the winter, while 

 at the same time it diminishes the warmth of summer. On the other hand, 

 the large continental tracts of Asia or America that shelve toward the pole 

 have a more intense winter cold and a far greater summer's heat than many 

 coast-lands or islands situated far nearer to the pole. Thus, to cite but a few 

 examples, the western shores of Nova Zembla, fronting a wide expanse of sea, 

 have an average winter temperature of only —4°, and a mean summer temper- 

 ature but little above the freezing-point of water (-{-36^°), while Jakutsk, sit- 

 uated in the heart of Siberia, and 20° nearer to the Equator, has a winter of 

 — 36° 6', and a summer of -f66° 6'. 



The influence of the winds is likewise of considerable importance in de- 

 termining the greater or lesser severity of an Arctic climate. Thus the north- 

 erly winds which prevail in Baflin's Bay and Davis's Straits during the sum- 

 mer months, and fill the straits of the American north-eastern Archipelago with 

 ice, are probably the main cause of the abnormal dei^ression of temperature in 

 that quarter ; while, on the contrary, the southerly winds that prevail during 

 summer in the valley of the Mackenzie tend greatly to extend the forest of 

 that favored region nearly down to the shores of the Arctic Sea. Even in the 

 depth of a Siberian winter, a sudden change of wind is able to raise the ther- 

 mometer from a mercury-congealing cold to a temperature above the freezing- 

 point of water, and a warm Avind has been known to cause rain to fall in Spitz- 

 bergen in the month of January. 



The voyages of Kane and Belcher have made us acquainted with the low- 

 est temperatures ever felt by man. On Feb. 5, 1854, while the former was 

 wintering in Smith's Sound (V8° 37' N. lat.), the mean of his best spirit-ther- 

 mometer showed the unexampled temperature of —68° or 100° below the 



