CH. I] 
The A rctic Regions 
5 
historical period, and probably for ages before the dawn 
of history. 
The two halves of the Arctic regions may be called 
the Old World or Eastern, and the New World or Western 
halves. In the former the water flows in, and in the 
latter it flows out, thus causing a great oceanic circulation 
not yet fully investigated, but now clearly understood in 
its general outline. 
In the eastern half of the Arctic regions the warm 
current from the Atlantic flows along the coast of Norway 
and then bifurcates, one branch going north along the 
western side of Spitsbergen, the other continuing along 
the Lapland coast and turning up the west coast of 
Novaya Zemlya. All the great rivers of Siberia also 
empty themselves into this eastern half. Thus there is a 
constant tendency, aided by prevailing winds, for the 
whole drift from the eastern shores to flow across the 
Arctic Ocean to the western side. 
On the American or western side the tendency is to 
flow outwards, but there is only one outlet, along the 
east coast of Greenland. The in-flow is insignificant, 
Bering Strait is shallow, and but a small volume of water 
finds its way within the Arctic area by that opening. 
The flow from all the American rivers, except the 
Mackenzie and Colville, is at once checked by land in 
front of their mouths. Hence the whole tendency of 
aqueous movement is to flow out, while there is only 
one means of escape. 
The consequence of this general drift outwards, with 
but one corresponding outlet, is very remarkable. The 
harvests of ice are carried across the Arctic Ocean until 
they are brought up by the American coast and islands, 
where they are completely stopped. Then the ice 
gradually increases from annual snow falls and other 
causes until it becomes upwards of a hundred feet in 
thickness. There is some movement in the summer, and 
a tendency eastward to the north of Ellesmere Island 
and Greenland, to join the Greenland current. The other 
straits and channels are too shallow for such ice to pass. 
In one place alone, between Melville and Banks Islands, 
there is a drift of this heavy ice into the Parry Archipelago,' 
for a distance of 500 miles, but it is then stopped by 
