Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-04
IN ARCTIC REGIONS.
THE PECULIAR MARBLE LIKE QUAIL
 TIES OF POLAR SNOW.

Little Danger of Trains Being Blockaded
 by Snow Drifts in the Extreme North
 ern Regions-Meteorologica Conditions.
 Mistakes Which Writers Make.
 When there was some talk a little while back about the Canadian government or the Manitoba portion of it, building a railway from Winnipeg to port in Hudson's bay to get water communication through Hudson's strait to Europe, the press of the United States, and especially that of the Atlantic seaboard, was naturally against the scheme that ignored their country and it's commer- cial advantages, the most common argument that I saw being condensed into the remark of one paper, which said that "this Arctic railroad would be busy shoveling snow off their track eleven months in thc year and could rest the other month waiting for ships through the ice blockaded straItsn Had this railroad ever been built q understand that it is DOW abandoned, although the rail way company is anxious for another eXpedi- tion to the straits) surmise it would have been commercial failure but wholly so from the s'ice blockaded straits," while as far as snow impediments were concerned 1t is very doubtful if it would have suffered as much as many of the railroads within our own limits that have two or three serious blockades every winter.
 NO DANGER OF BLOCKADES.
 If any one of my readers will closely watch the railroad news through winter he will see that the. worst snow bockades are not confined to the most northern rail ways by any means. Only the other day I saw Canadian criticism of the prospective Russian railway from Europe across Siberia to the Pacific ocean, as competing with their own for Chinese and Japanese trade when this same false idea that the Siberian rail- way would be closed half the year, with ''deep Arctic snows," was thrown out as a big piece of comfort in the case, when the chances are good that it would be closed less by this means than the Canadian Pacific, while it has less trouble than transconti- mental roads south of it. I lived a number of winters on one of these interoceanic rail- roads running nearly through the center of our country, reckoning north and southwise, and this fact was painfully impressed on me in annoying blockades of days ill length.
 But it should be said on the other side, also, that from its greater density foot or yard in depth of this hard, marble like Arc tic snow would probably impede a train much more than an equal depth of the soft snow with which we so familiar; but giving this all due allowance it is still in favor of the polar regions, and no capitalist need hesitate to put his money into Arctic railways on account of snow difficulties. There is already a railway in Europe-in Sweden-that runs into the Arctic regions for the purpose of tapping districts rich in the finest iron ores. It runs from the port of Lulea, in Sweden, at the head of the Gulf of BOthnia, across the Arctic circle to the GelliVara mountains, where the ores are found It is only within the last month or two that the iron horse has invaded the frigid zone for the first time, running over this line while the Hudson Bay railway, which has been so generally called the Amer ican Arctic railway, at its northern terminus was over 600 miles from the Arctic circle or little over half way from the Canadian United States boundary to the frigid zone
 HARDNESS OF ARCTIC SNOW.
 The shortness of the two seasons, spring and autumn, when the snow is falling, prob ably helps to explain why there is so little of it, at least in comparison with the popular idea regarding the large quantity. I know that occasionally some Arctic writer in a desperate attempt to portray the desolation of the north speaks of the deep, deep snow covering everything with its mournful man. tle, but in a country where there are nc trees nor brush to project through the snow covering whatever may be it's depth, it is i'm possible for any one to tell whether that covering is a foot or forty fathoms, as far as the superficial indications are concerned, and no such person is going to take ten-foot pole and go thrusting into snowdrifts to con- ! firm his assertions for the benefit of his readers.
 The peculiar hard consistency of the Arc. l tic snow is due, according to Eskimo author. l ity, to two reasons-the packing power oi | o1nS md hn Off fl, tremely low temperatures of that region | At least both of these conditions will have tc be fulfilled before these Arctic architects 1 will use the fall snows for building theil curious winter homes of that material, o1 probably, to put it palmer, after enough snow has fallen to make house building safe on the side of quantity, regular old borea blizzard must have swept over it and the thermometer must have had a siege of de presson before they consider 1t fit to cut into blocks and put together into houses.- Lieut.. Frederick Schwatka.
 DAUGHTERS OF EVE.