Part 42 (1/2)
”The place where Yettugin's tent was pitched offered us a view of an extensive snow-plain, which was enclosed on all sides by high hills. In the north and north-east Table Mount and the Tenen hill keep off the north winds, and to the south the encampment is protected by a long and high mountain chain from the winds coming from that quarter. I calculated the height of some of the mountains at from 1200 to 1500 metres, and their azure-blue colour furrowed by dark lines appeals to me to indicate the presence of ice on the slopes. One of the summits of this mountain chain was easily recognisable. It was a truncated cone, perhaps 1500 metres high. Kolyutschin Bay lies between these mountains and Yettugin's tent. Its western sh.o.r.e also appears to rise perpendicularly from the sea, and it is higher than the eastern. The bay, which appears to be much larger than it is represented on the maps, was covered with level ice, only here and there a piece of ice covered with snow was seen sticking up.
”As we were forced to desist from visiting the interior of Kolyutschin Bay, we determined to go to the ground where Yettugin's reindeer pastured. We therefore left the tent on the evening of the 15th and travelled E.N.E. The warmth, which had now commenced, began to make travelling over snow fields difficult, the dogs sank to the stomach, and not unfrequently we had to alight in order to help the poor animals to climb the hills we were obliged to ascend.
Scarcely however had they come to the reindeer tracks before even the most exhausted of them rushed along at the top of their speed, which might be pleasant enough uphill, but when they were coming down it was very dangerous, because the slope nearly always ends with a steep escarpment. We came once, without observing it, to the edge of such a precipice, and if we had not succeeded in time in slackening our speed a nice confused ma.s.s of men, dogs, and sledges would have tumbled over it. In order to excite their draught animals the Chukches avail themselves of their dogs' inclination to run after the reindeer, and during their journeys they endeavour to spur them on yet more by now and then imitating the reindeer's cry. After two or three hours travelling we fell in with the first reindeer, and then by degrees with more and more, until finally about 11 o'clock P.M. we came to a numerous herd, tended by Yettugin. I applied to him, asking him to barter a reindeer in good condition for a gun which I had brought along with me. After various evasions Yettugin at length promised to give us next day the reindeer for the gun. He would not however himself, or with his own knife, kill the reindeer, on which account I requested Dr. Almquist to give it the _coup de grace_.
”In consequence of the soft state of the snow we were obliged to defer the commencement of our return journey to the evening of the 16th. We now travelled over the chain of hills which unites Table Mount with Tenen, and descended their northern steep slope towards an extensive plain, studded for the most part with bogs and marshes. The 17th came in with mist and considerable warmth. The mist limited the circle of vision to a distance of some few metres, and the high temperature in a short time destroyed the crust which had been formed in the course of the preceding night on the surface of the snow, and melted the layers of snow which still covered the northern slopes of these two hills.
The southern slopes on the other hand were almost quite bare, and the valleys began to be filled with water. Four or five days as warm as these and I believe there scarcely would be any snow remaining round Kolyutschin Bay. The illusions caused by the white fog illuminated by the sunlight were very astonis.h.i.+ng. Every small spot of ground appeared as an extensive snow-free field, every tuft of gra.s.s as a bush, and a fox in our immediate neighbourhood was for a moment taken for a gigantic bear. Besides, during such a fog the action of the sunlight on the eyes was exceedingly painful even in the case of those who carried preservers. During the return Rotschitlen lost his way in consequence of the numerous different tracks. Fortunately I had observed how we travelled, and could with the help of the compa.s.s pilot our two small craft to a good haven. On the 17th of June at 1.30 P.M. we were again in good condition on board the _Vega_.”
In the society on board the prospects of an alteration in the constant north winds, the perpetual snow-storms and the unceasing cold, and the hope of a speedy release from the fetters of the ice, were naturally constantly recurring topics of conversation. During this time many lively word-battles were fought between the weather prophets in the gunroom, and many bets made in jest between the optimists and pessimists. The former won a great victory, when at noon on the 8th February the temperature lose to + 0.1 C., but with the exception of this success fortune always went against them. The north wind, the drifting snow and the cold, would never cease. A blue water-sky indeed was often visible at the horizon to the north and north-east, but the ”clearing” first reached our vessel a couple of hours before we left our winter haven for ever, and up to the 15th June the thickness of the ice was almost undiminished (1-1/2 metre) The sun rose higher and higher, but without forming any crust upon the snow, although upon the black hull of the _Vega_, perhaps with the help of the heat in the interior, it had by the 14th March melted so much snow that small icicles were formed at the gunwale. It was one of the many deceptive prognostications of spring which were hailed with delight. However, immediately after severe cold recommenced and continued during the whole of the month of April, during which the temperature of the an never rose above -4.6, the mean temperature being -18.9.
May began with a temperature of -20.1. On the 3rd the thermometer showed -26.8, and in the ”flower-month” we had only for a few hours mild weather with an air temperature +1.8.
Even the beginning of June was very cold, on the 3rd we had -14.3, with a mean temperature for the twenty-four hours of -9.4. Still on the 13th the thermometer at midnight showed -8.0, but the same day at noon with a gentle southerly wind a sudden change took place, and after that date it was only exceptionally that the thermometer in the open air sank below the freezing-point. The melting and evaporation of snow now began, and went on so rapidly that the land in the end of the month was almost free of snow.
Under what circ.u.mstances this took place is shown by the following abstract of the observations of temperature at Pitlekaj from the 13th June to the 18th July, 1879:--
Max Min Mean Max Min Mean
June 13 +3.6 -8.0 -1.95 July 1 +0.8 -0.6 +0.07 14 +2.6 +0.2 +1.47 2 +1.1 -1.0 +0.40 15 +3.1 +1.7 +2.28 3 +5.0 +1.0 +2.28 16 +1.6 -0.6 +0.90 4 +3.8 +1.4 +2.68 17 +3.0 +0.2 +1.22 5 +5.2 +2.0 +3.60 18 +2.4 -0.6 +1.23 6 +8.6 +1.0 +2.28 19 +3.6 +1.4 +2.43 7 +5.0 +1.4 +2.68 20 +3.5 +1.7 +2.50 8 +8.6 +0.6 +4.82 21 +2.6 +1.5 +2.07 9 +1.8 +0.4 +0.97 22 +3.0 +1.5 +2.28 10 +1.4 +0.5 +0.90 23 +4.1 +1.8 +3.00 11 +1.4 +0.6 +1.00 24 +6.8 +0.9 +3.18 12 +9.0 +0.5 +4.73 25 +4.4 +0.4 +2.30 13 +6.5 +3.7 +5.03 26 +3.8 +0.6 +1.77 14 +5.4 +1.8 +3.68 27 +1.4 +0.7 +1.02 15 +1.6 +0.6 +1.13 28 +2.1 +0.2 +0.92 16 +3.0 +0.6 +1.52 29 +0.9 -1.0 +0.12 17 +11.5 +8.8 +7.80 30 +1.0 -1.8 -0.27 18 +9.2 +6.2 +7.52
The figures in the maximum column, it will be seen, are by no means very high. That the enormous covering of snow, which the north winds had heaped on the beach, could disappear so rapidly notwithstanding this low temperature probably depends on this, that a large portion of the heat which the solar rays bring with them acts directly in melting the snow without sun-warmed air being used as an intermediate agent or heat-carrier, partly also on the circ.u.mstance that the winds prevailing in spring come from the sea to the southward, and before they reach the north coast pa.s.s over considerable mountain heights in the interior of the country. They have therefore the nature of _fohn_ winds, that is to say, the whole ma.s.s of air, which the wind carries with it, is heated, and its relative humidity is slight, because a large portion of the water which it originally contained has been condensed in pa.s.sing over the mountain heights. Accordingly when the dry _fohn_ winds prevail, a considerable evaporation of the snow takes place. The slight content of watery vapour in the atmosphere diminishes its power of absorbing the solar heat, and instead increases that portion of it which is found remaining when the sun's rays penetrate to the snowdrifts, and there conduce, not to raise the temperature, but to convert the snow into water. [261]
The aurora is, as is well-known, a phenomenon at the same time cosmic and terrestrial, which on the one hand is confined within the atmosphere of our globe and stands in close connection with terrestrial magnetism, and on the other side is dependent on certain changes in the envelope of the sun, the nature of which is as yet little known, and which are indicated by the formation of spots on the sun; the distinguished Dutch physicist, VON BAUMHAUER, has even placed the occurrence of the aurora in connection with cosmic substances which fall in the form of dust from the interstellar s.p.a.ces to the surface of the earth. Thus splendid natural phenomenon besides plays, though unjustifiably, a great _role_ in imaginative sketches of winter life in the high north, and it is in the popular idea so connected with the ice and snow of the Polar lands, that most of the readers of sketches of Arctic travel would certainly consider it an indefensible omission if the author did not give an account of the aurora as seen from his winter station. The scientific man indeed knows that this neglect has, in most cases, been occasioned by the great infrequency of the strongly luminous aurora just in the Franklin archipelago on the north coast of America, where most of the Arctic winterings of this century have taken place, but scarcely any journey of exploration has at all events been undertaken to the uninhabited regions of the high north, which has not in its working plan included the collection of new contributions towards dealing up the true nature of the aurora and its position in the heavens. But the scientific results have seldom corresponded to the expectations which had been entertained. Of purely Arctic expeditions, so far as I know, only two, the Austrian-Hungarian to Franz Josef Land (1872-74) and the Swedish to Mussel Bay (1872-73), have returned with full and instructive lists of auroras[262] Ross, PARRY, KANE, McCLINTOCK, HAYES, NARES, and others, have on the other hand only had opportunities of registering single auroras; the phenomenon in the case of their winterings has not formed any distinctive trait of the Polar winter night. It was the less to be expected that the _Vega_ expedition would form an exception in this respect, as its voyage happened during one of the years of which we knew beforehand that it would be a minimum aurora year. It was just this circ.u.mstance, however, which permitted me to study, in a region admirably suited for the purpose, a portion of this natural phenomenon under uncommonly favourable circ.u.mstances.
For the luminous arcs, which even in Scandinavia generally form starting-points for the radiant auroras, have here exhibited themselves undreamed by the more splendid forms of the aurora I have thus, undisturbed by subsidiary phenomena, been able to devote myself to the collection of contributions towards the ascertaining of the position of these luminous arcs, and I believe that I have in this way come to some very remarkable conclusions, which have been developed in detail in a separate paper printed in _The Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition_ (Part I. p. 400). Here s.p.a.ce permits me only to make the following statement.
The appearance of the aurora at Behring's Straits in 1878-79 is shown in the accompanying woodcuts. We never saw here the magnificent bands or draperies of rays which we are so accustomed to in Scandinavia, but only halo-like luminous arcs, which hour after hour, day after day, were unaltered in position. When the sky was not clouded over and the faint light of the aurora was not dimmed by the rays of the sun or the full moon, these arcs commonly began to show themselves between eight and nine o'clock P.M., and were then seen without interruption during midwinter till six, and farther on in the year to three o'clock in the morning. It follows from this that the aurora even during a minimum year is a permanent natural phenomenon. The nearly unalterable position of the arcs has further rendered possible a number of measurements of its height, extent, and position from which I believe I may draw the following inferences that our globe even during a minimum aurora year is adorned with an almost constant, single, double, or multiple luminous crown, whose inner edge is situated at a height of about 200 kilometres or 0.03 radius of the earth above its surface, whose centre, ”the aurora-pole,” lies somewhat under the earth's surface, a little north of the magnetic-pole, and which, with a diameter of 2,000 kilometres or 0.3 radius of the earth, extends in a plane perpendicular to the radius of the earth, which touches the centre of the circle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMMON AURORA ARC AT THE ”VEGA'S” WINTER QUARTERS. ]
[Ill.u.s.tration: AURORA AT THE ”VEGA'S” WINTERER QUARTERS, 3RD MARCH 1879, AT 9 P.M. ]
[Ill.u.s.tration: DOUBLE AURORA ARCS SEEN 20TH MARCH 1879, AT 9.30 P.M. ]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ELLIPTIC AURORA SEEN 21ST MARCH, 1879, AT 2.15 A.M. ]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ELLIPTIC AURORA SEEN 21ST MARCH, 1879, AT 3 A.M. ]
I have named this luminous crown _the aurora glory_ on account of its form and its resemblance to the crown of rays round the head of a saint. It stands in the same relation to the ray and drapery auroras of Scandinavia as the trade and monsoon winds in the south to the irregular winds and storms of the north. The light of the crown itself is never distributed into rays, but resembles the light which pa.s.ses through obscured gla.s.s. When the aurora is stronger, the extent of the light-crown is altered double or multiple arcs are seen, generally lying in about the same plane and with a common centre, and rays are cast between the different arcs. Arcs are seldom seen which lie irregularly to or cross each other.
The area in which the common arc is visible is bounded by two circles drawn upon the earth's surface, with the aurora-pole for a centre and radii of 8 and 28 measured on the circ.u.mference of the globe. It touches only to a limited extent countries inhabited by races of European origin (the northernmost part of Scandinavia, Iceland, Danish Greenland), and even in the middle of this area there is a belt pa.s.sing over middle Greenland, South Spitzbergen, and Franz Josef Land, where _the common arc_ forms only a faint, very widely extended, luminous veil in the zenith, which perhaps is only perceptible by the winter darkness being there considerably diminished. This belt divides the regions where these luminous arcs are seen princ.i.p.ally to the south from those in which they mainly appear on the northern horizon. In the area next the aurora-pole only the smaller, in middle Scandinavia only the larger, more irregularly formed luminous crowns are seen. But in the latter region, as in southern British America, aurora storms and ray and drapery auroras are instead common, and these appear to be nearer the surface of the earth than the arc aurora. Most of the Polar expeditions have wintered so near the aurora-pole that _the common aurora arc_ there lay under or quite near the horizon, and as the ray aurora appears to occur seldom within this circle, the reason is easily explained why the winter night was so seldom illuminated by the aurora at the winter quarters of these expeditions, and why the description of this phenomenon plays so small a part in their sketches of travel.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONG BIRDS IN THE RIGGING OF THE ”VEGA.” May 1879. ]
Long before the ground became bare and mild weather commenced, migratory birds began to arrive, first the snow-bunting on the 23rd April, then large flocks of geese, eiders, long-tailed ducks, gulls, and several kinds of waders and song-birds. First among the latter was the little elegant _Sylvia Ewersmanni_, which in the middle of June settled in great flocks on the only dark spot which was yet to be seen in the quarter--the black deck of the _Vega_.
All were evidently much exhausted, and the first the poor things did was to look out convenient sleeping places, of which there is abundance in the rigging of a vessel when small birds are concerned.
I need scarcely add that our new guests, the forerunners of spring, were disturbed on board as little as possible.
We now began industriously to collect material for a knowledge of the avi- and mammal-fauna of the region. The collections, when this is being written, are not yet worked out, and I can therefore only make the following statement on this point:
From the acquaintance I had made during my own preceding journeys and the study of others', with the bird-world of the high north, I had got the erroneous idea that about the same species of birds are to be met with everywhere in the Polar lands of Europe, Asia, and America.