ICE AN AGENT IN TRANSPORTING BOULDERS--HOW THIS COMES ABOUT--DR. KANE'S
OBSERVATIONS--LONG NIGHT IN WINTER AND LONG DAY IN SUMMER--EXTREME
DARKNESS--INFLUENCE ON DOGS--INTENSE COLD--EFFECT ON THE SEA.
There are many things in this world which, up to within a few years
back, have been to men a source of surprise and mystery.
Some of these problems have been solved by recent travellers, and not a
few of them are referable to polar oceans and ice.
In many parts of our coasts we find very striking and enormously large
boulder-stones lying on the beach, perfectly isolated, and their edges
rounded away like pebbles, as if they had been rolled on some
antediluvian beach strewn with Titanic stones. These boulders are
frequently found upon the loose sands of the sea-shore, far removed from
any rocks or mountains from which they might be supposed to have been
broken; and, more than that, totally different in their nature from the
geological formations of the districts in which they are found. "Whence
came these?" has been the question of the inquisitive of all ages, "and
how came they there?"
There may, for aught we know to the contrary, be more than one answer to
these questions; but there is at least one which is quite satisfactory
as to how and whence at least some of them have come. Ice was the means
of conveying these boulders to their present positions.
It has been said that once upon a time a large part of this country was
under the dominion of ice, even as the polar regions and some of the
mountains and valleys of Norway are at the present day; that the
boulders we see in elevated places were conveyed thither by glacier
action; and that when the glacial period passed away, they were left
there on the hill-sides--sometimes almost on the mountain-tops. But
this is not the question we are considering just now. We are now
inquiring into the origin of those huge boulders that are found upon our
coasts and on the coasts of other lands--boulders which could not have
rolled down from the hills, for there are no hills at all near many of
them; and those hills that are near some of them are of different
geological formation.
This question will be answered at once, and one of the phenomena of
arctic ice and oceanic agency will be exhibited, by reference to the
recent discoveries of the celebrated arctic voyager, Dr Kane of the
American Navy.
While wintering far beyond the head of Baffin's Bay, and beyond the most
northerly point, in that direction, that had at that time been reached
by any previous traveller, Dr Kane made many interesting observations
and discoveries. He seems to have penetrated deep into the heart of
Nature's northern secrets. Among other things, he ascertained the
manner in which boulders are transported from their northern home.
The slow, creeping movement of glaciers, to which we have already
referred, is one means whereby large boulders are formed. At the lower
edge of one of the glaciers of Norway we saw boulders, thirty or forty
feet in diameter, which had been rolled and forced, probably for ages,
down the valley by the glacier, and thrust out on the sea-beach, where
they lay with their angles and corners rubbed off and their surfaces
rounded and smoothed as completely as those of the pebbles by which they
were surrounded.
Had these boulders been formed in the arctic regions, they might have
been thrust out upon the thick solid crust of the frozen sea, which in
time would have been broken off and floated away; thus rafting the
boulders to other shores. The formation of boulders, and their
positions, are facts that we have seen. Their being carried out to sea
by ice-rafts is a fact that Dr Kane has seen and recorded. On the wild
rocky shores where his ship was set fast, there was a belt of ice lining
the margin of the sea, which he termed the "ice-belt," or the
"ice-foot." This belt never melted completely, and was usually fast to
the shore. In fact it was that portion of the sea-ice which was left
behind each spring when the general body of ice was broken up and swept
away. Referring to this, he writes:
"The spot at which we landed I have called Cape James Kent. It was a
lofty headland, and the land-ice which hugged its base was covered with
rocks from the cliffs above. As I looked over this ice-belt, losing
itself in the far distance, and covered with its millions of tons of
rubbish, greenstones, limestones, chlorite, slates, rounded and angular,
massive and ground to powder, its importance as a geological agent, in
the transportation of drift, struck me with great force.
"Its whole substance was studded with these varied contributions from
the shore; and further to the south, upon the now frozen waters of
Marshall Bay, I could recognise raft after raft from the last year's
ice-belt which had been caught by the winter, each one laden with its
heavy freight of foreign material.
"The water torrents and thaws of summer unite with the tides in
disengaging the ice-belt from the coast; but it is not uncommon for
large bergs to drive against it and carry away the growths of many
years. I have found masses that had been detached in this way, floating
many miles out at sea--long, symmetrical tables, two hundred feet long
by eighty broad, covered with large angular rocks and boulders, and
seemingly impregnated throughout with detrited matter. These rafts in
Marshall Bay were so numerous, that could they have melted as I saw
them, the bottom of the sea would have presented a more curious study
for the geologist than the boulder-covered lines of our middle
latitudes. One boulder in particular had had its origin in a valley
where rounded fragments of water-washed greenstone had been poured out
by the torrents and frozen into the coast-ice of the belt. The
attrition of subsequent matter had truncated the great egg-shaped rock,
and worn its sides into a striated face, whose scratches still indicated
the line of water-flow."
So, then, when we next meet with a huge isolated boulder on any of our
flat beaches, we may gaze at it with additional interest, when we
reflect that, perchance, it was carried thither by the ocean, countless
ages ago, from the arctic regions, on a gigantic raft of ice; after
having been, at a still more remote period, torn from its cliffs by some
mighty glacier and slowly rolled and rounded, for hundreds of years
perhaps down the scarred slopes of its native valley.
The primary cause of the intense and prolonged cold of the arctic
regions is the shortness of the time during which they are under the
influence of the sun's rays. For a few months in summer the sun shines
brightly, but, owing to the position of the globe, obliquely on the
poles. During part of that period it shines at mid-night as well as at
mid-day. Put during the greater part of the year its beams throw but a
feeble light there, and for several months in winter there is absolutely
no day at all--nothing but one long dismal night of darkness, that seems
as if the bright orb of day had vanished from the heavens for ever.
The length of this prolonged day in summer, and this dreary night in
winter, depends, of course, upon latitude. The length of both increases
as we approach the poles. The long daylight in summer is exceedingly
delightful. We once saw the sun describe an almost unbroken circle in
the sky for many days and nights, and had we been a few degrees further
north we should have seen it describe an entire circle. As it was, it
only disappeared for twenty minutes. It set about midnight, and in
twenty minutes it rose again so that there was no night, not even
twilight, but a bright, beautiful blazing day, for several weeks
together.
Dr Kane describes the midnight sun thus: "On our road we were favoured
with a gorgeous spectacle, which hardly any excitement of peril could
have made us overlook. The midnight sun came out over the northern
crest of the great berg, our late `fast friend,' kindling
variously-coloured fires on every part of its surface, and making the
ice around us one great resplendency of gem-work--blazing carbuncles and
rubies, and molten gold."
Very different indeed is the aspect of the winter night. Let the same
authority speak, for he had great experience thereof.
On December 15th he writes: "We have lost the last vestige of our
mid-day twilight. We cannot see print, and hardly paper. The fingers
cannot be counted a foot front the eyes. Noonday and midnight are
alike; and, except a vague glimmer on the sky, that seems to define the
hill-outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this arctic
world of ours has a sun. In one week more we shall reach the midnight
of the year...
"The influence of this long intense darkness was most depressing. Even
our dogs, although the greater number of them were natives of the arctic
circle, were unable to withstand it. Most of them died from an
anomalous form of disease, to which I am satisfied, the absence of light
contributed as much as extreme cold." Quoting from his journal he says:
"I am so afflicted with the insomnia of this eternal night, that I rise
at any time between midnight and noon. I went on deck this morning at
five o'clock. It was absolutely dark; the cold not permitting a
swinging lamp, there was not a glimmer came to me through the
ice-crusted window-panes of the cabin. While I was feeling my way, half
puzzled as to the best method of steering clear of whatever might be
before me, two of my Newfoundland dogs put their cold noses against my
hand, and instantly commenced the most exuberant antics of satisfaction.
It then occurred to me how very dreary and forlorn must these poor
animals be, at atmospheres 10 degrees above zero in-doors and 50 degrees
below zero without--living in darkness, howling at an accidental light,
as if it reminded them of the moon--and with nothing, either of instinct
or sensation, to tell them of the passing hours, or to explain the long
lost daylight. They shall see the lantern more frequently."
Yet this state of midnight darkness is not altogether unmitigated.
There are a few ameliorating influences at work, the nature of some of
which we will treat of in the next chapter. Among others, the moon
frequently shines there with great brilliancy in winter. Dr Kane says
that in October the moon had reached her greatest northern declination:
"She is a glorious object. Sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest
part of her curve she is still 14 degrees above the horizon. For eight
days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness.
It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of
sleigh-bells and songs and glad communings of hearts in lands that are
far away."
But despite all the varied and transient beauties of the northern skies
in winter, the long arctic night is undoubtedly depressing in the
extreme. In these regions men speak of being able to read the
thermometer on the 7th of November at noonday "without a light," as
being matter for gratulation. The darkness still before them at that
time would be of about three months' duration, and even then they would
only get back to a species of twilight.
The cold experienced by these navigators of the northern seas is
terribly intense. Their thermometers have frequently indicated a
temperature as low as 75 degrees below zero, or 107 degrees of frost, on
Fahrenheit's scale. The thermometers of arctic explorers are always
filled with spirits of wine, as quicksilver freezes at about 40 degrees
below zero, and is therefore unsuitable. It would be frozen, indeed,
the greater part of the winter.
Dr Kane says: "At such temperatures chloric ether became solid, and
carefully prepared chloroform exhibited a granular pellicle on its
surface. Spirits of naphtha froze at 54 degrees below zero, and oil of
sassafras at 49 degrees. The oil of winter-green was in a flocculent
state at 56 degrees, and solid at 63 degrees.
"The exhalations from the surface of the body invested the exposed or
partially clad parts with a wreath of vapour. The air had a perceptible
pungency upon inspiration, but I could not perceive the painful
sensation which has been spoken of by some Siberian travellers. When
breathed for any length of time, it imparted a sensation of dryness to
the air-passages. I noticed that, as it were involuntarily, we all
breathed guardedly, with compressed lips."
Now, strange to say, this extremely low temperature does not affect the
ocean to any great depth. Just below the ice, in cold such as the
above, the sea was found to be 29 degrees _above_ zero. No doubt,
deeper down, the temperature was still warmer. We have heard it said,
that when men chance to fall into the water in cold regions, in the
depth of winter, it feels at first rather warm and agreeable! On
scrambling out again, however, their condition is not enviable; for in a
few minutes the keen frost causes their garments to become as hard as
boards.
Much light has been thrown on the fact of the existence of under and
upper currents in the sea, by the phenomena of the arctic regions, and
some of the questions to which these currents give rise are so
interesting that we shall treat of them in a new chapter.