Page:The frozen North; an account of Arctic exploration for use in schools (IA frozennorthaccou00hort).pdf/22

 walruses come out of the water upon the ice, during the summer, to enjoy the sun, and thousands of snow buntings, auks, and eider ducks visit the shores of the cold seas to build their nests and catch food. When the summer of three months is over, nearly all outward signs of animal and vegetable life disappear and the entire landscape becomes a dreary, white expanse.

The inhabitants of this cold land are called Eskimos. They find it hard to get a living, and their dwellings are of the rudest and most primitive sort. Many of the tribes move from place to place, building their snow huts wherever game is most plentiful, but never going far inland, because fish forms a large part of their food. The Eskimos do not mind the bitter weather. They are quite accustomed to a temperature of 50° below zero.

Within the Arctic circle are two principal areas of great cold, one in North America and one in Siberia. The mildest winters are at Bering strait and in the Spitzbergen Sea, where there is usually open water. The former is affected by the warm Japan Current and the latter by the Gulf Stream.

We have as yet learned but little about the icy North. Nearly three million square miles of our earth lie within the Arctic circle and are unknown to-day. Much more information must be gained before man can hope to understand the physical laws of this mysterious region.

For a century and a half after the sailing ships of the sixteenth century had failed to find the northern passages to the East, little was done in the way of Arctic exploration. The whale and cod fishers were the only navigators who ventured into the frozen seas. These fishermen carried on a profitable business in fish and oil. One of them, a Scotch whaler named William Scoresby, succeeded in driving his