Nearctic

“ Many zoologists have advocated the union of the Palæarctic and Nearctic regions from the similarity, or rather the many similarities, to be found in their faunas, but the Sclaters argue that these affinities are only of recent origin, and that "palæontological evidence seems to show that, out of all the four regions embraced under the term 'Arctogœa,' [1] the North American or Nearctic Region was the first to be separated from the main mass, and that the similarity is a comparatively modern element in the character of the two faunas." ”

“ He asserted the view that only two primary subdivisions of the Nearctic Region should be made—a ‘Boreal’ province and a ‘Sonoran’ province. The former stretches from New England and the Great Lakes northwest across Canada to Alaska, and sends down long arms along the heights of the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, and along the Pacific Coast, whose fauna is a mingled one. Everything south of this is ‘Sonoran,’ embracing nearly all the United States, a great area of the plains of Northwestern Canada, and all of Mexico except the low tropical coast-lands. ”

“ On the whole the fish-fauna is typically Neotropical, but with a small infusion of Nearctic forms. There are a considerable proportion of peculiar genera, and almost all the species are distinct from those of other countries. ”

“ Furthermore, the relative degrees of specialization of the different species and subspecies in relation to their geographic distribution are in accord with the ideas elaborated by Matthew. For instance, the most primitive species is farthest south from the probable center of dispersal, the holarctic region. Also the full species become progressively more primitive as one proceeds southward from the holarctic, or at least from the northern half of the nearctic, region. ”

“ If in the Lower Cretacic when there existed the Nearctic continent, comprising most of North America, and continuing across the North Atlantic through Greenland and western Europe, and including the Scandinavian mass, a family of some fluviatile organisms had arisen in the central Canadian area, quickly spreading from one river system to another and finally reaching Europe, we would find in the rocks of that period, that many of the genera on the two modern continents were the same, and that there would be quite a goodly number of identical species. ”

“ Nearly 20 more are properly Palaearctic, but occasionally occur in America, and about 50 are Nearctic, which from time to time stray to Europe or Asia. This, however, is by no means the only point of resemblance. Of many genera, the so-called species found in the New World are represented in the Old by forms so like them that often none but an expert can distinguish them, and of such representative ‘species’ about 80 might be enumerated” (Newton, Dict. Birds, p. 335) . ”

“ The Urodela thus lend no support to the usual division of the Periarctic into a Palaearctic and a Nearctic sub-region. Nor is it possible to divide the Palaearctic into a Eurasian and a Mediterranean province. We have in this case to distinguish between an American, an Asiatic, and a European fauna. The Asiatic or Eastern Palaearctic sub-region assumes the central position, at least from a merely geographical point of view. It would be unjustifiable to assume a spreading from this centre into Europe, and, on the other hand, into America. ”

“ Podicipidæ — — — — Cosmopolite REPTILIA. Ophidia. 1. Typhlopidæ — — — — All regions but Nearctic 2. Tortricidæ — — — — Austro-Malaya, S. America 3. Xenopeltidæ — — Celebes 4. Uropeltidæ — 5. Calamariidæ — — — — All the warmer regions 6. Oligodontidæ — — — — S. America, Japan 7. Colubridæ — — — — Almost Cosmopolite 8. Homalopsidæ — — — — All the regions 9. Psammophidæ — — — Ethiopian, S. Palæarctic 11. Dendrophidæ — — — — Ethiopian, Australian, Neotropical 12. Dryiophidæ — — — — Ethiopian, Neotropical 13. Dipsadidæ — — — — Ethiopian, Australian, Neotropical 14. ”

“ Cabot had then rediscovered the mainland of North America, Corte-Real had reached Newfoundland, the Portuguese and the English were pushing northward to Greenland and the ice. And this brings in the great transformation of ideas about the Northern World.
[Pg 382] It is true that as yet we have not passed the northern limits of our forefathers’ voyages; and that views of the arctic regions are still obscure and vague. While some imagine a continent at the pole, others are for a wreath of islands around it with dangerous currents between them, and others again reckon upon an open polar sea. ”

“ We see a Pytheas, intelligent and courageous, steering northward from the Pillars of Hercules for the discovery of Britain and Northern Europe; we see hardy Vikings, with an Ottar, a Leif Ericson at their head, sailing in undecked boats across the ocean into ice and tempest and clearing the mists from an unseen world; we see a Davis, a Baffin forcing their way to the north-west and opening up new routes, while a Hudson, unconquered by ice and winter, finds a lonely grave on a deserted shore, a victim of shabby pilfering. We see the bright form of a Parry surpassing all as he forces himself on ”

“ And there in a crater deep and vast, ungained, unguessed of men,
The mystery of the Arctic world was flashed into my ken.
For there these poor dim eyes of mine beheld the sight of sights —
That hollow ring was the source and spring of the mystic Northern Lights.
Then I staked that place from crown to base, and I hit the homeward trail.
Ah, God! it was good, though my eyes were blurred, and I crawled like a sickly snail.
In that vast white world where the silent sky communes with the silent snow,
In hunger and cold and misery I wandered to and fro. ”

“ That there is a new world south of the pole is maintained by Science; it is the unalterable belief of the explorers, the hydrographers, the geographers. But what may that world be like? What was it like? Long millions and millions of years before our time the Arctic north was the procreant cradle of ALL LIFE! From it streamed the currents of animal and vegetable creation; it was warm; forests of palms flourished along river and lake-side, and within them roamed the creatures of tropical or semi-tropical climates. ”

“ It appeared to me that the natural foundation for a history of arctic voyages was in the first place to make clear the main features in the development of knowledge of the North in early times. By tracing how ideas of the Northern World, appearing first in a dim twilight, change from age to age, how the old myths and creations of the imagination are constantly recurring, sometimes in new shapes, and how new ones are added to them, we have a curious insight into the working of the human mind in its endeavour to subject to itself the world and the universe. ”

“ Signs that an untouched continent is hidden in the uncharted wastes of the western Arctic Sea. A vast area of waters, a blank space on the map lies there, but that is simply the refuge, for cartographic lucidity, of our ignorance. What really lies there is reciprocal on the west of Greenland on the east, of the Franz Josef Archipelago and Spitzbergen north of us. There is there another large fragment of that original circumpolar continent that Science, in a moment of intuitional certainty, points to as the source of the world’s animal and vegetable life. ”

“ I am reading of the continual sufferings which the earlier Arctic explorers had to contend with for every degree, even for every minute, of their northward course. It gives me almost a feeling of contempt for us, lying here on sofas, warm and comfortable, passing the time reading and writing and smoking and dreaming, while the storm is tugging and tearing at the rigging above us and the whole sea is one mass of driving snow, through which we are carried degree by degree northward to the goal our predecessors struggled towards, spending their strength in vain. ”

“ Now, if we apply this rule, by turning the north pole of a globe toward us, we readily see at a glance that Greenland, which is known to us, may bear to an unknown Arctic Continent the same relation that South America does to North America, or Africa to Europe. Hence it is perfectly logical to infer, by the great analogy of nature, that an Arctic Continent exists beneath the north pole, extending three and a half to four degrees south from the northern axis of the world. ”

“ In his disappointment, Hearne learned what every other discoverer in North America had learned—that the Great Northwest was something more than a bridge between Europe and Asia, that it was a world in itself with its own destiny. ”

“ And the Fram is now not only the most northerly vessel on the globe, but has already passed over a large expanse of hitherto unknown regions, many degrees farther north than have ever been reached in this ocean on this side of the Pole. But we hope she will not stop here; concealed behind the mist of the future there are many triumphs in store for us—triumphs which will dawn upon us one by one when their time has come. ”

“ After reading the thrilling narratives of Arctic exploration, one is ready to admit that “truth is stranger than fiction.”
The Polar regions can be reached by only three navigable routes. Either by the wide passage between Greenland and Norway, a smaller passage between Greenland and America, or by the narrow Bering Strait between America and Russia.
Up till the beginning of the nineteenth century nearly all the Arctic voyages had as the chief object the discovery either of a north-west or a north-east passage to the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ Geology.—Although much remains to be done in the exploration of the North Polar area, the main features of the physical geography of the region have been determined beyond any reasonable doubt. Within the Arctic Circle the northern portions of Europe, Asia, America and Greenland surround a central area of deep sea, the southern margin of which forms a broad continental shelf bearing many islands. The ring of land and shallow sea is broken only by the broad channel between Greenland and Europe through which Atlantic water gains an entrance to the Arctic Sea. ”

“ Thus at the close of antiquity the lands and seas of the North still lie in the mists of the unknown. Many indications point to constant communication with the North, and now and again vague pieces of information have reached the learned world. Occasionally, indeed, the clouds lift a little, and we get a glimpse of great countries, a whole new world in the North, but then they sink again and the vision fades like a dream of fairyland. ”

“ But that some genuine information about the North had reached them as early as the time of the Odyssey seems to be shown by the tale of the Læstrygons—who had the long day, and whose shepherds, driving their flocks in at evening, could call to those who were setting out in the morning, since the paths of day and night were with them so close to one another—and of the Cimmerians at the gates of the underworld, who lived in a land of fog, on the shores of Oceanus, in eternal cheerless night. ”

“ And from this coast where [Pg 201] the fleet was now anchored, and from the headland which they saw projecting into the sea right opposite, the gulf in my opinion (which is also that of Nearkhos) extends up into the interior, and is probably the Red Sea. When this headland was now in view Onesikritos, the chief pilot, proposed that they should proceed to explore it, and by so shaping their course, escape the distressing passage up the gulf; but Nearkhos opposed this proposal. ”

“ Very early in the history, and long after the fall of New Netherland, the ice-yacht was as winter feature up and down the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, just as soon as Jack Frost had furnished a floor more level than the humpy and sculptured stone pavements of the big churches in Patria. Not all of the boys and girls might afford iron-runnered skates, or could wait to buy or get them from Europe. What odds? They were bound to “ride” on skates, as the Dutch say. ”

“ Now, during the winter the Arctic regions come much farther south than they are marked on the map. Very few people know this, though you would think they could tell it by the ice in the jugs of a morning. And just when George and Jane were starting for the North Pole, the Arctic regions had come down very nearly as far as Forest Hill, so that, as the children walked on, it grew colder and colder, and presently they saw that the fields were covered with snow, and there were great icicles hanging from all the hedges and gates. ”

“ We speak of the first discovery of the North—but how do we know when the first man arrived in the northern regions of the earth? We know nothing but the very last steps in the [Pg 5] migrations of humanity. What a stretch of time there must have been between the period of the Neanderthal man in Europe and the first Pelasgians, or Iberians, or Celts, that we find there in the neolithic age, in the earliest dawn of history. ”

“ It has always been a grave error in all these northern land expeditions, that they have been too unwieldy, too much encumbered with the comforts and luxuries of civilization at the outset, and too much loaded with a philosophical paraphernalia, for a pioneering survey,—and cherishing too fondly the idea that the wide shores of the Arctic sea could be explored in a single season. ”

“ These islands had been rediscovered by Dutch sailors in 1431 and colonized, becoming a new Netherland. From this point the ships bound for the New World began their westward voyages. Lying eight hundred miles west of Portugal, these nine islands emerge from the ocean on nearly the parallels' of our Middle States. England lies in high latitudes. Cabot, Davis, and Frobisher, steering directly west, entered sub-polar regions. From the Azores to Sandy Hook is almost a straight line. In our day the German submarine cable connects Continental Europe with America, by way of the Azores and Embden. ”